AN 


INLAND    VOYAGE 


BY 


ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON, 


AUTHOR   OF    "  TRAVELS   WITH   A    DONKEY    IN    THE    CEVENNES," 
"NEW   ARABIAN   NIGHTS,"   ETC. 


Thus  sang  they  in  the  English  boat.''''  —  Marvell. 


BOSTON: 
ROBERTS     BROTHERS, 


1895 


>     J 


(?no\ 


"  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  is,  in  his  own  way,  one  of  the  most  perfect 
writers  living."  —  Philip  Gilbert  Hamerton. 

"  '  Travels  with  a  Donkey '  is  charming,  full  of  grace,  and  humor,  and 
freshness.  Such  refined  humor  it  is,  too,  and  so  evidently  the  work  of  a 
gentleman.  I  am  half  in  love  with  him,  and  much  inclined  to  thins  that 
a  ramble  anywhere  with  such  a  companion  must  be  worth  taking.  What 
a  happy  knack  he  has  of  giving  the  taste  ot  a  landscape  or  any  out-dooi 
impression  in  ten  words  1 " 


TJNIVERSITT 


LZ\o  \ 


r 

V 


PREFACE. 


To  equip  so  small  a  book  with  a  preface  is, 
I  am  half  afraid,  to  sin  against  proportion. 
But  a  preface  is  more  than  an  author  can  re- 
sist, for  it  is  the  reward  of  his  labors.  When 
the  foundation  stone  is  laid,  the  architect 
appears  with  his  plans,  and  struts  for  an  hour 
before  the  public  eye.  So  with  the  writer  in 
his  preface  :  he  may  have  never  a  word  to 
say,  but  he  must  show  himself  for  a  moment  ., 
in  the  portico,  hat  in  hand,  and  with  an  ur- 
bane demeanor. 

It  is  best,  in  such  circumstance,  to  repre- 
sent a  delicate  shade  of  manner  between  hu- 
mility and  superiority  :  as  if  the  book  had 
been  written  by  some  one  else,  and  you  had 


vi  Preface. 

merely  run  over  it  and  inserted  what  was 
good.  But  for  my  part  I  have  not  yet 
learned  the  trick  to  that  perfection ;  I  am 
not  yet  able  to  dissemble  the  warmth  of  my 
sentiments  towards  a  reader ;  and  if  I  meet 
him  on  the  threshold,  it  is  to  invite  him  in 
with  country  cordiality. 

To  say  truth,  I  had  no  sooner  finished 
reading  this  little  book  in  proof  than  I  was 
seized  upon  by  a  distressing  apprehension. 

It  occurred  to  me  that  I  might  not  only  be 
the  first  to  read  these  pages,  but  the  last  as 
well ;  that  I  might  have  pioneered  this  very 
smiling  tract  of  country  all  in  vain,  and  find 
not  a  soul  to  follow  in  my  steps.  The  more 
I  thought,  the  more  I  disliked  the  notion  ; 
until  the  distaste  grew  into  a  sort  of  panic 
terror,  and  I  rushed  into  this  Preface,  which 
is  no  more  than  an  advertisement  for  readers. 

What  am   I  to  say  for  my  book  ?     Caleb 


Preface.  vii 

and  Joshua  brought  back  from  Palestine  a 
formidable  bunch  of  grapes ;  alas !  my  book 
produces  naught  so  nourishing ;  and  for  the 
matter  of  that,  we  live  in  an  age  when  peo- 
ple prefer  a  definition  to  any  quantity  of  fruit. 

I  wonder,  would  a  negative  be  found  enti- 
cing ?  for,  from  the  negative  point  of  view,  I 
flatter  myself  this  volume  has  a  certain 
stamp.  Although  it  runs  to  considerably 
upwards  of  two  hundred  pages,  it  contains 
not  a  single  reference  to  the  imbecility  of 
God's  universe,  nor  so  much  as  a  single  hint 
that  I  could  have  made  a  better  one  myself, 
—  I  really  do  not  know  where  my  head  can 
have  been.  I  seemed  to  have  forgotten  all 
that  makes  it  glorious  to  be  man.  'T  is  an 
omission  that  renders  the  book  philosophi- 
cally unimportant ;  but  I  am  in  hopes  the 
eccentricity  may  please  in  frivolous  circles. 

To  the  friend  who  accompanied  me  I  owe 


viii  Preface. 

many  thanks  already,  indeed  I  wish  I  owed 
him  nothing  else  ;  but  at  this  moment  I  feel 
towards  him  an  almost  exaggerated  tender- 
ness. He,  at  least,  will  become  my  reader 
—  if  it  were  only  to  follow  his  own  travels 
alongside  of  mine. 

1C«     Lt,     o. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

ANTWERP  TO  BOOM     .                     .....  II 

ON    THE  WILLEBROEK    CANAL          ....  20 

THE  ROYAL  SPORT    NAUTIQUE 3 1 

AT  MAUBEUGE 43 

ON  THE  SAMBRE  CANALIZED  :    TO  QUARTES        .          .  53 

PONT-SUR-SAMBRE  :  — 

WE  ARE  PEDLARS 65 

THE  TRAVELLING  MERCHANT   ....  77 

ON  THE  SAMBRE  CANALIZED  :    TO  LANDRECIES     .  87 

AT  LANDRECIES 98 

SAMBRE  AND  OISE  CANAL  :    CANAL  BOATS     .          .  I08 

THE  OISE  IN   FLOOD Il8 

ORIGNY  SAINTE-BENOlTE :  — 

A   BY-DAY 134 

THE  COMPANY  AT   TABLE  147 

DOWN  THE  OISE:  TO  MOY       .....  lOO 


x  Contents. 


PAGB 


LA   F&RE  OF  CURSED   MEMORY      .  .  .  .  .171 

DOWN  THE  OISE  :    THROUGH  THE  GOLDEN   VALLEY  183 

NOYON   CATHEDRAL 187 

DOWN   THE  OISE:    TO  COMPIEGNE  .          .          .           .  197 

AT  COMPIEGNE 202 

CHANGED  TIMES        .......  212 

DOWN  THE  OISE:    CHURCH   INTERIORS        •           .           .  224 

PRECY  AND  THE  MARIONETTES       ....  238 

BACK  TO  THE  WORLD            ......  258 


'    '  ,  ' 


'  ' ' 


y 


AN  INLAND  VOYAGE. 


ANTWERP  TO   BOOM. 

We  made  a  great  stir  in  Antwerp  Docks. 
A  stevedore  and  a  lot  of  dock  porters  took 
up  the  two  canoes,  and  ran  with  them  for 
the  slip.  A  crowd  of  children  followed  cheer- 
ing. The  Cigarette  went  off  in  a  splash  and 
a  bubble  of  small  breaking  water.  Next 
moment  the  Arethusa  was  after  her.  A 
steamer  was  coming  down,  men  on  the  pad- 
dle-box shouted  hoarse  warnings,  the  steve- 
dore and  his  porters  were  bawling  from  the 
quay.  But  in  a  stroke  or  two  the  canoes 
were  away  out  in  the  middle  of  the  Scheldt, 


< 


«       .       •      • 

.  '         •       i    '    ■      . 


•      •      ,  '      .  .       .        •    •     ' 


12  ':  An-  Inland   Voyage. 

and  all  steamers,  and  stevedores,  and  other 
'long-shore  vanities  were  left  behind. 

The  sun  shone  brightly;  the  tide  was 
making  —  four  jolly  miles  an  hour;  the  wind 
blew  steadily,  with  occasional  squalls.  For 
my  part,  I  had  never  been  in  a  canoe  under 
sail  in  my  life  ;  and  my  first  experiment  out 
in  the  middle  of  this  big  river  was  not  made 
without  some  trepidation.  What  would  hap- 
pen when  the  wind  first  caught  my  little  can- 
vas ?  I  suppose  it  was  almost  as  trying  a 
venture  into  the  regions  of  the  unknown  as 
to  publish  a  first  book,  or  to  marry.  But  my 
doubts  were  not  of  long  duration ;  and  in 
five  minutes  you  will  not  be  surprised  to 
learn  that  I  had  tied  my  sheet. 

I  own  I  was  a  little  struck  by  this  circum- 
stance myself;  of  course,  in  company  with 
the  rest  of  my  fellow-men,  I  had  always  tied 
the  sheet  in  a  sailing-boat ;   but  in  so  little 


Antwerp  to  Boom.  13 

and  crank  a  concern  as  a  canoe,  and  with 
these  charging  squalls,  I  was  not  prepared  to 
find  myself  follow  the  same  principle ;  and  it 
inspired  me  with  some  contemptuous  views 
of  our  regard  for  life.  It  is  certainly  easier 
to  smoke  with  the  sheet  fastened  ;  but  I  had 
never  before  weighed  a  comfortable  pipe  of 
tobacco  against  an  obvious  risk,  and  gravely 
elected  for  the  comfortable  pipe.  It  is  a 
commonplace,  that  we  cannot  answer  for 
ourselves  before  we  have  been  tried.  But  it 
is  not  so  common  a  reflection,  and  surely 
more  consoling,  that  we  usually  find  our- 
selves a  great  deal  braver  and  better  than  we 
thought.  I  believe  this  is  every  one's  expe- 
rience: but  an  apprehension  that  they  may 
belie  themselves  in  the  future  prevents  man- 
kind from  trumpeting  this  cheerful  senti- 
ment abroad.  I  wish  sincerely,  for  it  would 
have  saved  me  much  trouble,  there  had  been 


14  An  Inland  Voyage. 

some  one  to  put  me  in  a  good  heart  about 
life  when  I  was  younger;  to  tell  me  how 
dangers  are  most  portentous  on  a  distant 
su:ht ;  and  how  the  good  in  a  man's  spirit 
will  not  suffer  itself  to  be  overlaid,  and 
rarely  or  never  deserts  him  in  the  hour  of 
need.  But  we  are  all  for  tootling  on  the 
sentimental  flute  in  literature ;  and  not  a 
man  among  us  will  go  to  the  head  of  the 
march  to  sound  the  heady  drums. 

It  was  agreeable  upon  the  river.  A  barge 
or  two  went  past  laden  with  hay.  Reeds 
and  willows  bordered  the  stream ;  and  cattle 
and  gray,  venerable  horses  came  and  hung 
their  mild  heads  over  the  embankment. 
Here  and  there  was  a  pleasant  village  among 
trees,  with  a  noisy  shipping  yard ;  here  and 
there  a  villa  in  a  lawn.  The  wind  served  us 
well  up  the  Scheldt  and  thereafter  up  the 
Rupel ;    and  we    were    running   pretty  free 


Antwerp  to  Boom.  15 

when  we  began  to  sight  the  brickyards  of 
Boom,  lying  for  a  long  way  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  river.  The  left  bank  was  still 
green  and  pastoral,  with  alleys  of  trees 
along  the  embankment,  and  here  and  there 
a  flight  of  steps  to  serve  a  ferry,  where  per- 
haps there  sat  a  woman  with  her  elbows  on. 
her  knees,  or  an  old  gentleman  with  a  staff 
and  silver  spectacles.  But  Boom  and  its 
brickyards  grew  smokier  and  shabbier  with 
every  minute  ;  until  a  great  church  with  a 
clock,  and  a  wooden  bridge  over  the  river, 
indicated  the  central  quarters  of  the  town. 

Boom  is  not  a  nice  place,  and  is  only  re- 
markable for  one  thing:  that  the*  majority 
of  the  inhabitants  have  a  private  opinion 
that  they  can  speak  English,  which  is  not 
justified  by  fact.  This  gave  a  kind  of  hazi- 
ness to  our  intercourse.  As  for  the  Hotel 
de  la  Navigation,  I  think  it  is  the  worst  fea- 


1 6  An  Inland  Voyage. 

ture  of  the  place.  It  boasts  of  a  sanded 
parlor,  with  a  bar  at  one  end,  looking  on 
the  street ;  and  another  sanded  parlor, 
darker  and  colder,  with  an  empty  bird-cage 
and  a  tricolor  subscription  box  by  way  of 
sole  adornment,  where  we  made  shift  to 
dine  in  the  company  of  three  uncommuni- 
cative engineer  apprentices  apd  a  silent  bag- 
man. The  food,  as  usual  in  Belgium,  was 
of  a  nondescript  occasional  character ;  in- 
deed I  have  never  been  able  to  detect  any- 
thing in  the  nature  of  a  meal  among  this 
pleasing  people ;  they  seem  to  peck  and 
trifle  with  viands  all  day  long  in  an  amateur 
spirit :  tentatively  French,  truly  German, 
and  somehow  falling  between  the   two. 

The  empty  bird-cage,  swept  and  garnished, 
and  with  no  trace  of  the  old  piping  favor- 
ite, save  where  two  wires  had  been  pushed 
apart  to  hold  its  lump  of  sugar,  carried  with 


Antwerp  to  Boom.  ij 

it  a  sort  of  graveyard  cheer.  The  engineer 
apprentices  would  have  nothing  to  say  to 
us,  nor  indeed  to  the  bagman ;  but  talked 
low  and  sparingly  to  one  another,  or  raked 
us  in  the  gaslight  with  a  gleam  of  specta- 
cles. For  though  handsome  lads,  they  were 
all  (in  the  Scotch  phrase)  barnacled. 

There  was  an  English  maid  in  the  hotel, 
who  had  been  long  enough  out  of  England 
to  pick  up  all  sorts  of  funny  foreign  idioms, 
and  all  sorts  of  curious  foreign  ways,  which 
need  not  here  be  specified.  She  spoke  to  us 
very  fluently  in  her  jargon,  asked  us  infor- 
mation as  to  the  manners  of  the  present 
day  in  England,  and  obligingly  corrected  us 
when  we  attempted  to  answer.  But  as  we 
were  dealing  with  a  woman,  perhaps  our 
information  was  not  so  much  thrown  away 
as  it  appeared.  The  sex  likes  to  pick  up 
knowledge  and  yet  preserve  its  superiority. 


1 8  An  Inland  Voyage. 

It  is  good  policy,  and  almost  necessary  in 
the  circumstances.  If  a  man  finds  a  woman 
admires  him,  were  it  only  for  his  acquaint- 
ance with  geography,  he  will  begin  at  once 
to  build  upon  the  admiration.  It  is  only  by 
unintermittent  snubbing  that  the  pretty 
ones  can  keep  us  in  our  place.  Men,  as 
Miss  Howe  or  Miss  Harlowe  would  have 
said,  "  are  such  encroachersT  For  my  part, 
I  am  body  and  soul  with  the  women  ;  and 
after  a  well-married  couple,  there  is  nothing 
so  beautiful  in  the  world  as  the  myth  of 
the  divine  huntress.  It  is  no  use  for  a  man 
to  take  to  the  woods  ;  we  know  him  ;  An- 
thony tried  the  same  thing  long  ago,  and 
had  a  pitiful  time  of  it  by  all  accounts. 
But  there  is  this  about  some  women,  which 
overtops  the  best  gymnosophist  among 
men,  that  they  suffice  to  themselves,  and 
can  walk  in  a  high  and  cold  zone  without 
the    countenance     of    any    trousered  being, 


Antwerp  to  Boom.  19 

I  declare,  although  the  reverse  of  a  pro- 
fessed ascetic,  I  am  more  obliged  to  women 
for  this  ideal  than  I  should  be  to  the  ma- 
jority of  them,  or  indeed  to  any  but  one, 
for  a  spontaneous  kiss.  There  is  nothing 
so  encouraging  as  the  spectacle  of  self- 
sufficiency.  And  when  I  think  of  the  slim 
and  lovely  maidens,  running  the  woods  all 
night  to  the  note  of  Dianas  horn ;  moving 
among  the  old  oaks,  as  fancy-free  as  they ; 
things  of  the  forest  and  the  starlight,  not 
touched  by  the  commotion  of  man's  hot 
and  turbid  life — although  there  are  plenty 
other  ideals  that  I  should  prefer — I  find 
my  heart  beat  at  the  thought  of  this  one. 
'T  is  to  fail  in  life,  but  to  fail  with  what  a 
grace !  That  is  not  lost  which  is  not  re- 
gretted. And  where  —  here  slips  out  the 
male  —  where  would  be  much  of  the  glory 
of  inspiring  love,  if  there  were  no  contempt 
to  overcome  ? 


ON  THE  WILLEBROEK   CANAL. 

Next  morning,  when  we  set  forth  on  the 
Willebroek  Canal,  the  rain  began  heavy  and 
chill.  The  water  of  the  canal  stood  at  about 
the  drinking  temperature  of  tea ;  and  under 
this  cold  aspersion,  the  surface  was  covered 
with  steam.  The  exhilaration  of  departure, 
and  the  easy  motion  of  the  boats  under  each 
stroke  of  the  paddles,  supported  us  through 
this  misfortune  while  it  lasted;  and  when 
the  cloud  passed  and  the  sun  came  out 
again,  our  spirits  went  up  above  the  range 
of  stay-at-home  humors.  A  good  breeze 
rustled  and  shivered  in  the  rows  of  trees  that 
bordered  the  canal.  The  leaves  flickered  in 
and  out  of  the  light  in  tumultuous   masses. 


On  the   Willebroek  Canal.  21 

It  seemed  sailing  weather  to  eye  and  ear ; 
but  down  between  the  banks,  the  wind 
reached  us  only  in  faint  and  desultory  puffs. 
There  was  hardly  enough  to  steer  by.  Pro 
gress  was  intermittent  and  unsatisfactory. 
A  jocular  person,  of  marine  antecedents, 
hailed  us  from  the  tow-path  with  a  "  C  est 
vite>  mais  c  est  long" 

The  canal  was  busy  enough.  Every  now 
and  then  we  met  or  overtook  a  long  string  of 
boats,  with  great  green  tillers ;  high  sterns 
with  a  window  on  either  side  of  the  rudder, 
and  perhaps  a  jug  or  a  flower-pot  in  one  of  r 
the  windows ;  a  dingy  following  behind ;  a 
woman  busied  about  the  day's  dinner,  and  a 
handful  of  children.  These  barges  were  all 
tied  one  behind  the  other  with  tow  ropes,  to 
the  number  of  twenty-five  or  thirty ;  and  the 
line  was  headed  and  kept  in  motion  by  a 
steamer  of    strange    construction.      It   had 


22  A71  Inland  Voyage. 

neither  paddle-wheel  nor  screw ;  but  by 
some  gear  not  rightly  comprehensible  to  the 
unmechanical  mind,  it  fetched  up  over  its 
bow  a  small  bright  chain  which  lay  along  the 
bottom  of  the  canal,  and  paying  it  out  again 
over  the  stern,  dragged  itself  forward,  link 
by  link,  with  its  whole  retinue  of  loaded 
scows.  Until  one  had  found  out  the  key  to 
the  enigma,  there  was  something  solemn  and 
uncomfortable  in  the  progress  of  one  of 
these  trains,  as  it  moved  gently  along  the 
water  with  nothing  to  mark  its  advance  but 
an  eddy  alongside  dying  away  into  the  wake. 
Of  all  the  creatures  of  commercial  enter- 
prise, a  canal  barge  is  by  far  the  most  de- 
lightful to  consider.  It  may  spread  its  sails, 
and  then  you  see  it  sailing  high  above  the 
tree-tops  and  the  wind-mill,  sailing  on  the 
aqueduct,  sailing  through  the  green  corn- 
lands  :   the  most  picturesque  of  things  am- 


On  the   Willebroek  Canal.  23 

phibiors.  Or  the  horse  plods  along  at  a 
foot-pace  as  if  there  were  no  such  thing  as 
business  in  the  world ;  and  the  man  dream- 
ing at  the  tiller  sees  the  same  spire  on  the 
horizon  all  day  long.  It  is  a  mystery  how 
things  ever  get  to  their  destination  at  this 
rate ;  and  to  see  the  barges  waiting  their 
turn  at  a  lock,  affords  a  fine  lesson  of  how 
easily  the  world  may  be  taken.  There 
should  be  many  contented  spirits  on  board, 
for  such  a  life  is  both  to  travel  and  to  stay 
at  home. 

The  chimney  smokes  for  dinner  as  you  go 
along ;  the  banks  of  the  canal  slowly  unroll 
their  scenery  to  contemplative  eyes ;  the 
barge  floats  by  great  forests  and  through 
great  cities  with  their  public  buildings  and 
their  lamps  at  night ;  and  for  the  bargee,  in 
his  floating  home,  "  travelling  abed,"  it  is 
merely  as  if  he  were  listening  to    another 


24  An  Inland  Voyage. 

man's  story  or  turning  the  leaves  of  a  pic- 
ture book  in  which  he  had  no  concern.  He 
may  take  his  afternoon  walk  in  some  foreign 
country  on  the  banks  of  the  canal,  and  then 
come  home  to  dinner  at  his  own  fireside. 

There  is  not  enough  exercise  in  such  a 
life  for  any  high  measure  of  health  ;  but  a 
high  measure  of  health  is  only  necessary  for 
unhealthy  people.  The  slug  of  a  fellow,  who 
is  never  ill  nor  well,  has  a  quiet  time  of  it  in 
life,  and  dies  all  the  easier. 

I  am  sure  I  would  rather  be  a  bargee  than 
occupy  any  position  under  Heaven  that  re- 
quired attendance  at  an  office.  There  are 
few  callings,  I  should  say,  where  a  man  gives 
up  less  of  his  liberty  in  return  for  regular 
meals.  The  bargee  is  on  shipboard  ;  he  is 
master  in  his  own  ship ;  he  can  land  when- 
ever he  will ;  he  can  never  be  kept  beating 
off  a  lee-shore  a  whole  frosty  night  when  the 


On  the   Willebroek  Canal.  25 

sheets  are  as  hard  as  iron  ;  and  so  far  as  I 
can  make  out,  time  stands  as  nearly  still 
with  him  as  is  compatible  with  the  return  of 
bedtime  or  the  dinner-hour.  It  is  not  easy 
to  see  why  a  bargee  should  ever  die. 

Half-way  between  Willebroek  and  Ville- 
vorde,  in  a  beautiful  reach  of  canal  like  a 
squire's  avenue,  we  went  ashore  to  lunch. 
There  were  two  eggs,  a  junk  of  bread,  and  a 
bottle  of  wine  on  board  the  Arethusa;  and 
two  eggs  and  an  Etna  cooking  apparatus  on 
board  the  Cigarette.  The  master  of  the 
latter  boat  smashed  one  of  the  eggs  in  the 
course  of  disembarkation ;  but  observing 
pleasantly  that  it  might  still  be  cooked  a  la 
papier,  he  dropped  it  into  the  Etna,  in  its 
covering  of  Flemish  newspaper.  We  landed 
in  a  blink  of  fine  weather  ;  but  we  had  not 
been  two  minutes  ashore  before  the  wind 
freshened  into  half  a  gale,  and  the  rain  be- 


26  An  Inland  Voyage. 

gan  to  patter  on  our  shoulders.  We  sat  as 
close  about  the  Etna  as  we  could.  The 
spirits  burned  with  great  ostentation ;  the 
grass  caught  flame  every  minute  or  two,  and 
had  to  be  trodden  out ;  and  before  long  there 
were  several  burnt  fingers  of  the  party.  But 
the  solid  quantity  of  cookery  accomplished 
was  out  of  proportion  with  so  much  display ; 
and  when  we  desisted,  after  two  applications 
of  the  fire,  the  sound  egg  was  a  little  more 
than  loo-warm  ;  and  as  for  a  la  papier,  it  was 
a  cold  and  sordid  fricassie  of  printer's  ink  and 
broken  egg-shell.  We  made  shift  to  roast 
the  other  two  by  putting  them  close  to  the 
burning  spirits,  and  that  with  better  success. 
And  then  we  uncorked  the  bottle  of  wine, 
and  sat  down  in  a  ditch  with  our  canoe 
aprons  over  our  knees.  It  rained  smartly. 
Discomfort,  when  it  is  honestly  uncomfort- 
able and  makes  no   nauseous  pretensions  to 


On  the    Willebroek  Canal.  27 

the  contrary,  is  a  vastly  humorous  business ; 
and  people  well  steeped  and  stupefied  in  the 
open  air  are  in  a  good  vein  for  laughter. 
From  this  point  of  view,  even  tgg  a  la  papier 
offered  by  way  of  food  may  pass  muster  as  a 
sort  of  accessory  to  the  fun.  But  this  man- 
ner of  jest,  although  it  may  be  taken  in  good 
part,  does  not  invite  repetition  ;  and  from 
that  time  forward  the  Etna  voyaged  like  a 
gentleman  in  the  locker  of  the  Cigarette. 

It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  mention  that 
when  lunch  was  over  and  we  got  aboard 
again  and  made  sail,  the  wind  promptly  died 
away.  The  rest  of  the  journey  to  Villevorde 
we  still  spread  our  canvas  to  the  unfavoring 
air,  and  with  now  and  then  a  puff,  and  now 
and  then  a  spell  of  paddling,  drifted  along 
from  lock  to  lock  between  the  orderly  trees. 

It  was  a  fine,  green,  fat  landscape,  or 
rather  a   mere  green   water-lane   going  op 


28  An  Inland  Voyage. 

from  village  to  village.  Things  had  a  set- 
tled look,  as  in  places  long  lived  in.  ^  Crop- 
headed  children  spat  upon  us  from  the 
bridges  as  we  went  below,  with  a  true  con- 
servative feeling.  But  even  more  conserva- 
tive were  the  fishermen,  intent  upon  their 
floats,  who  let  us  go  by  without  one  glance. 
They  perched  upon  sterlings  and  buttresses 
and  along  the  slope  of  the  embankment, 
gently  occupied.  They  were  indifferent  like 
pieces  of  dead  nature.  They  did  not  move 
any  more  than  if  they  had  been  fishing  in  an 
old  Dutch  print.  The  leaves  fluttered,  the 
water  lapped,  but  they  continued  in  one  stay, 
'ike  so  many  churches  established  by  law. 
You  might  have  trepanned  every  one  of  their 
innocent  heads  and  found  no  more  than  so 
much  coiled  fishing  line  below  their  skulls. 
I  do  not  care  for  your  stalwart  fellows  in 
India-rubber   stockings   breasting   up  moun 


On  the    Willebroek  Canal.  29 

tain  torrents  with  a  salmon  rod ;  but  I  do 

dearly  love  the  class  of  man  who  plies  his 

unfruitful  art  forever  and  a  day  by  still  and 

depopulated  waters. 

v 

At  the  lock  just  beyond  Villevorde  there 
was  a  lock  mistress  who  spoke  French  com- 
prehensibly, and  told  us  we  were  still  a 
couple  of  leagues  from  Brussels.  At  the 
same  place  the  rain  began  again.  It  fell  in 
straight,  parallel  lines,  and  the  surface  of 
the  canal  was  thrown  up  into  an  infinity  of 
little  crystal  fountains.  There  were  no  beds 
to  be  had  in  the  neighborhood.  Nothing  for 
it  but  to  lay  the  sails  aside  and  address  our- 
selves to  steady  paddling  in  the  rain. 

Beautiful  country  houses,  with  clocks  and 
long  lines  of  shuttered  windows,  and  fine  old 
trees  standing  in  groves  and  avenues,  gave 
a  rich  and  sombre  aspect  in  the  rain  and  the 
deepening  dusk  to  the  shores  of  the  canal. 


v. 


30  An  Inland  Voyage. 

I  seem  to  have  seen  something  of  the  same 
effect  in  engravings  :  opulent  landscapes,  de- 
serted and  overhung  with  the  passage  of 
storm.  And  throughout  we  had  the  escort 
of  a  hooded  cart,  which  trotted  shabbily 
along  the  tow-path,  and  kept  at  an  almost 
uniform  distance  in  our  wake. 


THE   ROYAL   SPORT   NAUTIQUE. 

The  rain  took  off  near  Laeken.  But  the 
sun  was  already  down ;  the  air  was  chill ; 
and  we  had  scarcely  a  dry  stitch  between  the 
pair  of  us.  Nay,  now  we  found  ourselves  near 
the  end  of  the  Allee  Verte,  and  on  the  very 
threshold  of  Brussels  we  were  confronted  by 
a  serious  difficulty.  The  shores  were  closely 
lined  by  canal  boats  waiting  their  turn  at  the 
lock.  Nowhere  was  there  any  convenient 
landing  place ;  nowhere  so  much  as  a  stable- 
yard  to  leave  the  canoes  in  for  the  night. 
We  scrambled  ashore  and  entered  an  estami- 
net  where  some  sorry  fellows  were  drinking 
with  the  landlord.  The  landlord  was  pretty 
round  with  us;  he  knew  of  no  coach-house  or 


32  An  Inland  Voyage. 

stable-yard,  nothing  of  the  sort ;  and  seeing 
we  had  come  with  no  mind  to  drink,  he  did 
not  conceal  hic  impatience  to  be  rid  of  us. 
One  of  the  sorry  fellows  came  to  the  rescue. 
Somewhere  in  the  corner  of  the  basin  there 
was  a  slip,  he  informed  us,  and  something 
else  besides,  not  very  clearly  defined  by  him, 
but  hopefully  construed  by  his  hearers. 

Sure  enough  there  was  the  slip  in  the  cor- 
ner of  the  basin  ;  and  at  the  top  of  it  twr 
nice-looking  lads  in  boating  clothes.  The 
Arethusa  addressed  himself  to  these.  One 
of  them  said  there  would  be  no  difficulty 
about  a  night's  lodging  for  our  boats ;  and 
the  other,  taking  a  cigarette'  from  his  lips, 
inquired  if  they  were  made  by  Searle  &  Son. 
The  name  was  quite  an  introduction.  Half 
a  dozen  other  young  men  came  out  of  a  boat 
house  bearing  the  superscription  Royal 
Sport  Nautique,  and   joined   in   the   talk. 


The  Royal  Sport  Nautique.  33 

They  were  all  very  polite,  voluble,  and  en- 
thusiastic ;  and  their  discourse  was  inter- 
larded with  English  boating  terms,  and  the 
names  of  English  boat-builders  and  English 
clubs.  I  do  not  know,  to  my  shame,  any 
spot  in  my  native  land  where  I  should  have 
been  so  warmly  received  by  the  same  num- 
ber of  people.  We  were  English  boating- 
men,  and  the  Belgian  boating-men  fell  upon 
our  necks.  I  wonder  if  French  Huguenots 
were  as  cordially  greeted  by  English  Protest- 
ants when  they  came  across  the  Channel 
out  of  great  tribulation.  But,  after  all,  what 
religion  knits  people  so  closely  as  common 
sport  ? 

The  canoes  were  carried  into  the  boat- 
house;  they  were  washed  down  for  us  by  the 
club  servants,  the  sails  were  hung  out  to  dry, 
and  everything  made  as  snug  and  tidy  as  a 
picture.  And  in  the  mean  while  we  were  led 
3 


34  An  Inland  Voyage. 

up-stairs  by  our  new-found  brethren,  for  so 
more  than  one  of  them  stated  the  relation- 
ship, and  made  free  of  their  lavatory.  This 
one  lent  us  soap,  that  one  a  towel,  a  third 
and  fourth  helped  us  to  undo  our  bags.  And 
all  the  time  such  questions,  such  assurances 
of  respect  and  sympathy  !  I  declare  I  never 
knew  what  glory  was  before. 

"  Yes,  yes,  the  Royal  Sport  Nautique  is  the 
oldest  club  in  Belgium." 

"  We  number  two  hundred." 

"  We  "  —  this  is  not  a  substantive  speech, 
but  an  abstract  of  many  speeches,  the  im- 
pression left  upon  my  mind  after  a  great 
deal  of  talk  ;  and  very  youthful,  pleasant,  nat- 
ural, and  patriotic  it  seems  to  me  to  be  — 
"We  have  gained  all  races,  except  those 
where  we  were  cheated  by  the  French? 

"  You  must  leave  all  your  wet  things  to  be 
dried." 


The  Royal  Sport  Nautique.  35 

"O!  entre  frcres !  In  any  boat-house  in 
England  viz  should  find  the  same."  (I  cor- 
dially hope  they  might.) 

"  En  Angleterre,  votes  employ ez  des  sliding* 
seats,  11  est-ce  pas?" 

"We  are  all  employed  in  commerce  during 
the  day  ;  but  in  the  evening,  voyez-vous,  notes 


sommes  serieux." 


These  were  the  words.  They  were  all 
employed  over  the  frivolous  mercantile  con- 
cerns of  Belgium  during  the  day  ;  but  in  the 
evening  they  found  some  hours  for  the  seri- 
ous concerns  of  life.  I  may  have  a  wrong 
idea  of  wisdom,  but  I  think  that  was  a  very 
wise  remark.  People  connected  with  litera- 
ture and  philosophy  are  busy  all  their  days 
in  getting  rid  of  second-hand  notions  and 
false  standards.  It  is  their  profession,  in  the 
sweat  of  their  brows,  by  dogged  thinking,  to 
recover  their  old  fresh  view  of  life,  and  dip 


2,6  An  Inland  Voyage. 

tinguish  what  they  really  and  originally  like 
from  what  they  have  only  learned  to  tolerate 
perforce.  And  these  Royal  Nautical  Sports- 
men had  the  distinction  still  quite  legible  in 
their  hearts.  They  had  still  those  clean  per- 
ceptions of  what  is  nice  and  nasty,  what  is 
interesting  and  what  is  dull,  which  envious 
old  gentlemen  refer  to  as  illusions.  The 
nightmare  illusion  of  middle  age,  the  bear's 
hug  of  custom  gradually  squeezing  the  life 
out  of  a  man's  soul,  had  not  yet  begun  for 
these  happy-star'd  young  Belgians.  They 
still  knew  that  the  interest  they  took  in 
their  business  was  a  trifling  affair  compared 
to  their  spontaneous,  long-suffering  affection 
for  nautical  sports.  To  know  what  you  pre- 
fer, instead  of  humbly  saying  Amen  to  what 
the  world  tells  you  you  ought  to  prefer,  is  to 
have  kept  your  soul  alive.  Such  a  man  may 
be  generous;  he  may  be  honest  in  something 


The  Royal  Sport  Naatique.  $f 

more  than  the  commercial  sense ;  he  may 
love  his  friends  with  an  elective,  persona] 
sympathy,  and  not  accept  them  as  an  adjunct 
of  the  station  to  which  he  has  been  called. 
He  may  be  a  man,  in  short,  acting  on  his 
own  instincts,  keeping  in  his  own  shape 
that  God  made  him  in ;  and  not  a  mere 
crank  in  the  social  engine  house,  welded 
on  principles  that  he  does  not  understand, 
and  for  purposes  that  he  does  not  care 
for. 

^  For  will  any  one  dare  to  tell  me  that  busi- 
ness is  more  entertaining  than  fooling  among 
boats  ?  He  must  have  never  seen  a  boat,  or 
never  seen  an  office,  who  says  so.  And  for 
certain  the  one  is  a  great  deal  better  for  the 
health.  There  should  be^  nothing  so  much  a 
man's  business  as  his  amusements.  Noth- 
ing but  money-grubbing  can  be  put  forward 
to  the  contrary ;  no  one  but 


38  An  Inla?id  Voyage, 

Mammon,  the  least  erected  spirit  that  fell 
From  Heaven, 

durst  risk  a  word  in  answer.  It  is  but  a 
lying  cant  that  would  represent  the  mer- 
chant and  the  banker  as  people  disinter- 
estedly toiling  for  mankind,  and  then  most 
useful  when  they  are  most  absorbed  in  their 
transactions  ;  for  the  man  is  more  important 
than  his  services.  And  when  my  Royal 
Nautical  Sportsman  shall  have  so  far  fallen 
from  his  hopeful  youth  that  he  cannot  pluck 
up  an  enthusiasm  over  anything  but  his 
ledger,  I  venture  to  doubt  whether  he  will  be 
near  so  nice  a  fellow,  and  whether  he  would 
welcome,  with  so  good  a  grace,  a  couple  of 
drenched  Englishmen  paddling  into  Brussels 
in  the  dusk. 

When  we  had  changed  our  wet  clothes  and 
drunk  a  glass  of  pale  ale  to  the  club's  pros- 
perity, one  of  their  number  escorted  us  to  a 


The  Royal  Sport  Nautique.  39 

•*otel.  He  would  not  join  us  at  our  dinner, 
but  he  had  no  objection  to  a  glass  of  wine. 
Enthusiasm  is  very  wearing ;  and  I  begin  to 
understand  why  prophets  were  unpopular  in 
Judcea,  where  they  were  best  known.  For 
three  stricken  hours  did  this  excellent  young 
man  sit  beside  us  to  dilate  on  boats  and 
boat-races ;  and  before  he  left,  he  was  kind 
enough  to  order  our  bedroom  candles. 

We  endeavored  now  and  again  to  change 
the  subject ;  but  the  diversion  did  not  last 
a  moment :  the  Royal  Nautical  Sportsman 
bridled,  shied,  answered  the  question,  and 
then  breasted  once  more  into  the  swelling 
tide  of  his  subject.  I  call  it  his  subject ;  but 
I  think  it  was  he  who  was  subjected.  The 
Arethusa,  who  holds  all  racing  as  a  creature 
of  the  devil,  found  himself  in  a  pitiful 
dilemma.  He  durst  not  own  his  ignorance 
for  the   honor   of   old   England,  and   spoke 


40  An  Inland  Voyage. 

away  about  English  clubs  and  English  oars- 
men whose  fame  had  never  before  come  to 
his  ears.  Several  times,  and,  once  above  all, 
on  the  question  of  sliding-seats,  he  was 
within  an  ace  of  exposure.  As  for  the  Ciga- 
rette, who  has  rowed  races  in  the  heat  of  his 
blood,  but  now  disowns  these  slips  of  his 
wanton  youth,  his  case  was  still  more  des- 
perate ;  for  the  Royal  Nautical  proposed  that 
he  should  take  an  oar  in  one  of  their  eights 
on  the  morrow,  to  compare  the  English  with 
the  Belgian  stroke.  I  could  see  my  friend 
perspiring  in  his  chair  whenever  that  partic- 
ular topic  came  up.  And  there  was  yet 
another  proposal  which  had  the  same  effect 
on  bcth  of  us.  It  appeared  that  the  cham- 
pion canoeist  of  Europe  (as  well  as  most 
other  champions)  was  a  Royal  Nautical 
Sportsman.  And  if  we  would  only  wait 
until  the  Sunday,  this  infernal  paddler  would 


The  Royal  Sport  Nautique.  41 

be  so  condescending  as  to  accompany  us  on 
our  next  stage.  Neither  of  us  had  the  least 
desire  to  drive  the  coursers  of  the  sun 
against  Apollo. 

When  the  young  man  was  gone,  we  coun- 
termanded our  candles,  and  ordered  some 
brandy  and  water.  The  great  billows  had 
gone  over  our  head.  The  Royal  Nautical 
Sportsmen  were  as  nice  young  fellows  as  a 
man  would  wish  to  see,  but  they  were  a 
trifle  too  young  and  a  thought  too  nautical 
for  us.  We  began  to  see  that  we  were  old 
and  cynical  ;  we  liked  ease  and  the  agree- 
able rambling  of  the  human  mind  about 
this  and  the  other  subject ;  we  did  not 
want  to  disgrace  our  native  land  by  mess- 
ing at  eight,  or  toiling  pitifully  in  the 
wake  of  the  champion  canoeist.  In  short, 
we  had  recourse  to  flight.  It  seemed  un- 
grateful, but  we  tried  to    make    that    good 


42  An  Inland  Voyage. 

on  a  card  loaded  with  sincere  compliments. 
And  indeed  it  was  no  time  for  scruples ; 
we  seemed  to  feel  the  hot  breath  of  the 
champion  on  our  necks. 


AT   MAUBEUGE. 

Partly  from  the  terror  we  had  of  our 
good  friends  the  Royal  Nauticals,  partly  from 
the  fact  that  there  were  no  fewer  than  fifty- 
five  locks  between  Brussels  and  Charleroi,  we 
concluded  that  we  should  travel  by  train 
across  the  frontier,  boats  and  all.  Fifty-five 
locks  in  a  day's  journey  was  pretty  well  tan- 
tamount  to  trudging  the  whole  distance  on 
foot,  with  the  canoes  upon  our  shoulders,  an 
object  of  astonishment  to  the  trees  on  the 
canal  side,  and  of  honest  derision  to  all  right- 
thinking  children.' 

To  pass  the  frontier,  even  in  a  train,  is  a 
difficult  matter  for  the  Arethusa.  He  is, 
somehow  or  other,  a  marked  man  for  the  ofi> 


44  An  Inland  Voyage. 

rial  eye.  Wherever  he  journeys,  there  are 
the  officers  gathered  together.  Treaties  are 
solemnly  signed,  foreign  ministers,  ambassa- 
dors, and  consuls  sit  throned  in  state  from 
China  to  Pern,  and  the  Union  Jack  flutters 
on  all  the  winds  of  heaven.  Under  these 
safeguards,  portly  clergymen,  school-mis- 
tresses, gentlemen  in  gray  tweed  suits,  and 
all  the  ruck  and  rabble  of  British  touristry 
pour  unhindered,  Murray  in  hand,  over  the 
railways  of  the  Continent,  and  yet  the  slim 
person  of  the  Arethusa  is  taken  in  the 
meshes,  while  these  great  fish  go  on  their 
way  rejoicing.  If  he  travels  without  a  pass 
port,  he  is  #  cast,  without  any  figure  about 
the  matter,  into  noisome  dungeons  :  if  his 
papers  are  in  order,  he  is  suffered  to  go  his 
way  indeed,  but  not  until  he  has  been  humil- 
iated by  a  general  incredulity.  He  is  a  born 
British  subject,  yet  he  has  never  succeeded 


At  Maubenge.  45 

in  persuading  a  single  official  of  his  nation- 
ality. He  flatters  himself  he  is  indifferent 
honest ;  yet  he  is  rarely  known  for  anything 
better  than  a  spy,  and  there  is  no  absurd  and 
disreputable  means  of  livelihood  but  has  been 
attributed  to  him  in  some  heat  of  official  or 
popular  distrust.  .  .  . 

For  the  life  of  me  I  cannot  understand  it 
I,  too,  have  been  knolled  to  church  and  sat 
at  good  men's  feasts,  but  I  bear  no  mark  of 
it.  I  am  as  strange  as  a  Jack  Indian  to  their 
official  spectacles.  I  might  come  from  any 
part  of  the  globe,  it  seems,  except  from 
where  I  do.  My  ancestors  have  labored  in 
vain,  and  the  glorious  Constitution  cannot 
protect  me  in  my  walks  abroad.  It  is  a 
great  thing,  believe  me,  to  present  a  good 
normal  type  of  the  nation  you  belong  to. 

Nobody    else  was    asked  for    his    papers 
on  the   way   to   Maubetige,  but   I   was ;   and 


46  An  Inland  Voyage, 

although  I  clung  to  my  rights,  I  had  to  choose 
at  last  between  accepting  the  humiliation 
and  being  left  behind  by  the  train.  I  was 
sorry  to  give  way,  but  I  wanted  to  get  to 
Maubenge. 

,  Maubenge  is  a  fortified  town  with  a  very 
good  inn,  the  Grand  Cerf.  It  seemed  to  be 
inhabited  principally  by  soldiers  and  bagmen  ; 
at  least,  these  were  all  that  we  saw  except 
the  hotel  servants.  We  had  to  stay  there 
some  time,  for  the  canoes  were  in  no  hurry 
to  follow  us,  and  at  last  stuck  hopelessly  in 
the  custom-house  until  we  went  back  to 
liberate  them.  There  was  nothing  to  do, 
nothing  to  see.  We  had  good  meals,  which 
was  a  great  matter,  but  that  was  all. 

The  Cigarette  was  nearly  taken  up  upon  a 
charge  of  drawing  the  fortifications :  a  feat 
of  which  he  was  hopelessly  incapable.  And 
besides,  as  I  suppose  each  belligerent  nation 


At  Maubeuge.  47 

has  a  plan   of  the  other's  fortified  places  al- 
ready,  these  precautions  are  of   the  nature") 
of  shutting  the  stable  door  after  the  steed  is 
away.      But  I  have  no  doubt  they  help   to) 
keep  up  a  good  spirit  at  home.     It  is  a  great) 
thing  if  you  can  persuade  people  that  theyj 
are  somehow  or  other  partakers  in  a  mystery.; 
It  makes  them  feel  bigger.     Even  the  Free-) 
masons,  who  have  been  shown  up  to  satiety,] 
preserve  a  kind  of   pride ;  and  not  a  grocer) 
among  them,  however  honest,  harmless,  andy 
empty-headed  he  may  feel  himself  to  be  at) 
bottom,  but  comes  home  from  one  of  their* 
ccenacula  with  a  portentous  significance  for) 
himself. ) 

It  is  an  odd  thing  how  happily  two  people, 
if  there  are  two,  can  live  in  a  place  where 
they  have  no  acquaintance.  I  think  the 
spectacle  of  a  whole  life  in  w]iich  you  have 
no  part  paralyzes  personal  desire.     You  are 


48  An  Inland   Voyage. 

content  to  become  a  mere  spectator.  The 
baker  stands  in  his  door ;  the  colonel  with 
his  three  medals  goes  by  to  the  cafe  at 
night ;  the  troops  drum  and  trumpet  and 
man  the  ramparts  as  bold  as  so  many  lions. 
It  would  task  language  to  say  how  placidly 
you  behold  all  this.  In  a  place  where  you 
have  taken  some  root  you  are  provoked  out 
of  your  indifference ;  you  have  a  hand  in  the 
game, — your  friends  are  fighting  with  the 
army.  But  in  a  strange  town,  not  small 
enough  to  grow  too  soon  familiar,  nor  so 
large  as  to  have  laid  itself  out  for  travellers, 
you  stand  so  far  apart  from  the  business 
that  you  positively  forget  it  would  be  pos- 
sible to  go  nearer ;  you  have  so  little  human 
interest  around  you  that  you  do  not  remem- 
ber yourself  to  be  a  man.  Perhaps  in  a  very 
short  time  you  would  be  one  no  longer. 
Gymnosophists  go  into  a  wood  with  all  na- 


At  Maubeuge.  49 

ture  seething  around  them,  with  romance  on 
every  side  ;  it  would  be  much  more  to  the 
purpose  if  they  took  up  their  abode  in  a  dull 
country  town  where  they  should  see  just  so 
much  of  humanity  as  to  keep  them  from 
desiring  more,  and  only  the  stale  externals 
of  man's  life.  These  externals  are  as  dead 
to  us  as  so  many  formalities,  and  speak  a 
dead  language  in  our  eyes  and  ears.  They 
have  no  more  meaning  than  an  oath  or  a  sal- 
utation. We  are  so  much  accustomed  to  see 
married  couples  going  to  church  of  a  Sunday 
that  we  have  clean  forgotten  what  they 
represent ;  and  novelists  are  driven  to  reha- 
bilitate adultery,  no  less,  when  they  wish  to 
show  us  what  a  beautiful  thing  it  is  for  a  man 
and  a  woman  to  live  for  each  other. 

K/ne  person  in  Maubeuge,  however,  showed 
me  something  more  than  his  outside.  That 
was  the  driver  of  the  hotel  omnibus :  a  mean- 

4 


50  A  n  Inland   Voyage. 

• 

enough  looking  little  man,  as  well  as  I  can 
remember,  but  with  a  spark  of  something 
human  in  his  soul.  He  had  heard  of  our 
little  journey,  and  came  to  me  at  once  in  en- 
vious sympathy.  How  he  longed  to  travel ! 
he  told  me.  How  he  longed  to  be  some- 
where else,  and  see  the  round  world  before 
he  went  into  the  grave  !  "  Here  I  am,"  said 
he.  "I  drive  to  the  station.  Well.  And 
then  I  drive  back  again  to  the  hotel.  And 
1/  so  on  every  day  and  all  the  week  round.  My 
Gody  is  that  life?"  I  could  not  say  I 
thought  it  was  —  for  him.  He  pressed  me  to 
tell  him  where  I  had  been,  and  where  I 
hoped  to  go  ;  and  as  he  listened,  I  declare 
the  fellow  sighed.  Might  not  this  have  been 
a  brave  African  traveller,  or  gone  to  the  In- 
dies after  Drake  ?  Eut  it  is  an  evil  age  for 
the  gypsily  inclined  among  men.  He  who 
can  sit  squarest  on  a  three-legged  stool,  he 
it  is  who  has  the  wealth  and  glory. 


At  Maabenge.  51 

I  wonder  if  my  friend  is  still  driving  the 
omnibus  for  the  Grand  Cerf !  Not  verv 
likely,  I  believe ;  for  I  think  he  was  on  the 
eve  of  mutiny  when  we  passed  through,  and 
perhaps  our  passage  determined  him  for 
good.  Better  a  thousand  times  that  he 
should  be  a  tramp,  and  mend  pots  and  pans 
by  the  wayside,  and  sleep  under  trees,  and 
see  the  dawn  and  the  sunset  every  day  above 
a  new  horizon.  I  think  I  hear  you  say  that 
it  is  a  respectable  position  to  drive  an  omni- 
bus ?  Very  well.  What  right  has  he  who 
likes  it  not  to  keep  those  who  would  like 
it  dearly  out  of  this  respectable  position  ? 
Suppose  a  dish  were  not  to  my  taste,  and 
you  told  me  that  it  was  a  favorite  among  the 
rest  of  the  company,  what  should  I  conclude 
from  that  ?  Not  to  finish  the  dish  against 
my  stomach,  I  suppose,  s 

Respectability  is    a  very   good    thing    in 


52  Aji  Inland   Voyage. 

its  way,  but  it  does  not  rise  superior  to  all 
considerations.  I  would  not  for  a  moment 
venture  to  hint  that  it  was  a  matter  of 
taste ;  but  I  think  I  will  go  as  far  as  this  : 
that  if  a  position  is  admittedly  unkind,  un- 
comfortable, unnecessary,  and  superfluously 
useless,  although  it  were  as  respectable  as 
the  Church  of  England,  the  sooner  a  man 
is  out  of  it,  the  better  for  himself,  and  all 
concerned. 


ON   THE   SAMBRE  CANALIZED. 

TO    QUARTES. 

About  three  in  the  afternoon  the  whole 
establishment  of  the  Grand  Cerf  accompa- 
nied us  to  the  water's  edge.  The  man  of 
the  omnibus  was  there  with  haggard  eyes. 
Poor  casre-bird !     Do    I    not    remember  the 

o 

time  when  I  myself  haunted  the  station,  to 
watch  train  after  train  carry  its  comple- 
ment of  freemen  into  the  night,  and  read 
the  names  of  distant  places  on  the  time- 
bills  with  indescribable  longings? 

We  were  not  clear  of  the  fortifications 
before  the  rain  began.  The  wind  was  con- 
trary, and  blew  in  furious  gusts ;  nor  were 
the   aspects    of   nature    any    more    clement 


54  An  Inland  Voyage. 

than  the  doings  of  the  sky.  For  we  passed 
through  a  blighted  country,  sparsely  cov- 
ered with  brush,  but  handsomely  enough 
diversified  with  factory  chimneys.  We 
landed  in  a  soiled  meadow  among  some 
pollards,  and  there  smoked  a  pipe  in  a  flaw 
of  fair  weather.  But  the  wind  blew  so 
hard  we  could  get  little  else  to  smoke. 
There  were  no  natural  objects  in  the 
neighborhood,  but  some  sordid  workshops. 
A  group  of  children,  headed  by  a  tall  girl, 
stood  and  watched  us  from  a  little  distance 
all  the  time  we  stayed.  I  heartily  wonder 
what  they  thought  of  us^ 

At  Hautmont,  the  lock  was  almost  im- 
passable ;  the  landing  place  being  steep  and 
high,  and  the  launch  at  a  long  distance. 
Near  a  dozen  grimy  workmen  lent  us  a 
hand.  They  refused  any  reward ;  and,  what 
is  much  better,  refused  it  handsomely,  with- 


On  the  Sambre  Canalised.  55 

out  conveying  any  sense  of  insult.  "  It  is 
a  way  we  have  in  our  country-side,"  said 
they.  And  a  very  becoming  way  it  is.  In 
Scotland,  where  also  you  will  get  services 
for  nothing,  the  good  people  reject  your 
money  as  if  you  had  been  trying  to  corrupt 
a  voter.  When  people  take  the  trouble  to 
do  dignified  acts,  it  is  worth  while  to  take 
a  little  more,  and  allow  the  dignity  to  be 
common  to  all  concerned.  But  in  our  brave 
Saxon  countries,  where  we  plod  threescore 
years  and  ten  in  the  mud,  and  the  wind 
keeps  singing  in  our  ears  from  birth  to  bur- 
ial, we  do  our  good  and  bad  with  a  high 
hand  and  almost  offensively ;  and  make 
even  our  alms  a  witness-bearing  and  an  act 
of  war  against  the  wrongs, 

After  HautmonU  the  sun  came  forth 
again  and  the  wind  went  down ;  and  a  lit- 
tle paddling  took  us  beyond  the  iron  works 


56  An  Inland  Voyage. 

and  through  a  delectable  land.  The  river 
wound  among  low  hills,  so  that  sometimes 
the  sun  was  at  our  backs  and  sometimes 
it  stood  right  ahead,  and  the  \river  before 
J  us  was  one  sheet  of  intolerable  gloryA  On 
either  hand  meadows  and  orchards  bor- 
dered, with  a  margin  of  sedge  and  water 
flowers,  upon  the  river.  The  hedges  were 
of  great  height,  woven  about  the  trunks  of 
hedgerow  elms  ;  and  the  fields,  as  they  were 
often  very  small,  looked  like  a  series  of  bow- 
ers along  the  stream.  There  was  never  any 
prospect ;  sometimes  a  hill-top  with  its  trees 
would  look  over  the  nearest  hedgerow,  just 
to  make  a  middle  distance  for  the  sky  ;  but 
that  was  all.  The  heaven  was  bare  of 
clouds.  The  atmosphere,  after  the  rain,  was 
of  enchanting  purity.  The  river  doubled 
among  the  hillocks,  a  shining  strip  of  mirror 
glass ;  and  the  dip  of  the  paddles  set  the 
flowers  shaking  along  the  brink. 


On  the  Sambre  Canalized.  57 

In  the  meadows  wandered  black  and  white 
cattle  fantastically  marked.  One  beast,  with 
a  white  head  and  the  rest  of  the  body  glossy 
black,  came  to  the  edge  to  drink,  and  stood 
gravely  twitching  his  ears  at  me  as  I  went 
by,  like  some  sort  of  preposterous  clergyman 
in  a  play.  A  moment  after  I  heard  a  loud 
plunge,  and,  turning  my  head,  saw  the 
clergyman  struggling  to  shore.  The  bank 
had  given  way  under  his  feet. 
'Besides  the  cattle,  we  saw  no  living  things 
xcept  a  few  birds  and  a  great  many  fisher- 
men.     These   sat   along   the   edges   of    the 

V  meadows,  sometimes  with  one  rod,  some- 
times  with  as  many  as  half  a  score.     They 

f  seemed  stupefied  with  contentment ;  and, 
when  we  induced  them  to  exchange  a  few 
words  with  us  about  the  weather,  their 
voices  sounded  quiet  and  far  away.  There 
was   a   strange   diversity   of  opinion   among 


58  An  Inland  Voyage. 

them  as  to  the  kind  of  fish  for  which  they 
set  their  lures ;  although  they  were  all 
agreed  in  this,  that  the  river  was  abun- 
dantly supplied.  Where  it  was  plain  that 
no  two  of  them  had  ever  caught  the  same 
kind  of  fish,  we  could  not  help  suspecting 
that  perhaps  not  any  one  of  them  had  ever 
caught  a  fish  at  all.  I  hope,  since  the  after- 
noon was  so  lovely,  that  they  were  one  and 
all  rewarded ;  and  that  a  silver  booty  w  enT 
home  in  every  basket  for  the  pot.  Some 
of  my  friends  would  cry  shame  on  me  for 
this ;  but  I  prefer  a  man,  were  he  only  an 
angler,  to  the  bravest  pair  of  gills  in  all 
God's  waters.  '  I  do  not  affect  fishes  unless 
when  cooked  in  sauce  ;  whereas  an  angler  is 
an  important  piece  of  river  scenery,  and 
hence  deserves  some  recognition  among 
canoeists.  He  can  always  tell  you  where 
you  are,  after  a  mild  fashion  ;  and  his  quiet 


On  the  Sambre  Canalized.  59 

presence  serves  to  accentuate  the  solitude 
and  stillness,  and  remind  you  of  the  glitter- 
ing citizens  below  your  boat.  / 

The  Sambre  turned  so  industriously  to 
and  fro  among  his  little  hills  that  it  was 
past  six  before  we  drew  near  the  lock  at 
Quartes.  There  were  some  children  on  the 
tow-path,  with  whom  the  Cigarette  fell  into 
a  chaffing  talk  as  they  ran  along  beside  us. 
It  was  in  vain  that  I  warned  him.  In  vain 
I  told  him  in  English  that  boys  were  the 
most  dangerous  creatures ;  and  if  once  you 
began  with  them,  it  was  safe  to  end  in  a 
shower  of  stones.  For  my  own  part,  when- 
ever anything  was  addressed  to  me,  I  smiled 
gently  and  shook  my  head,  as  though  I 
were  an  inoffensive  person  inadequately  ac- 
quainted with  French.  For,  indeed,  I  have  . 
had  such  an  experience  at  home  that  I 
would  sooner  meet  many  wild  animals  than 
a  troop  of  healthy  urchins. 


60  An  Inland  Voyage. 

But  I  was  doing  injustice  to  these  peace- 
able young  Hainaulters.  When  the  Cigar- 
ette went  off  to  make  inquiries,  I  got  out 
upon  the  bank  to  smoke  a  pipe  and  superin- 
tend the  boats,  and  became  at  once  the  cen- 
tre of  much  amiable  curiosity.  The  children 
had  been  joined  by  this  time  by  a  young 
woman  and  a  mild  lad  who  had  lost  an  arm ; 
and  this  gave  me  more  security.  When  I 
let  slip  my  first  word  or  so  in  French,  a  little 
girl  nodded  her  head  with  a  comical  grown- 
up air.  "Ah,  you  see,"  she* said,  "he  under- 
stands well  enough  now;  he  was  just  mak- 
ing believe."  And  the  little  group  laughed 
together  very  good-naturedly. 

They  were  much  impressed  when  they 
heard  we  came  from  England;  and  the 
little  girl  proffered  the  information  that 
England  was  an  island  "and  a  far  way  from 
here  —  bien  loin  d'ici" 


On  the  Sambre  Canalized,  6 1 

"  Ay,  you  may  say  that,  a  far  way  from 
here,"  said  the  lad  with  one  arm. 

I  was  nearly  as  homesick  as  ever  I  was 
in  my  life  ;  they  seemed  to  make  it  such  an 
incalculable  distance  to  the  place  where  I 
first  saw  the  day. 

They  admired  the  canoes  very  much. 
And  I  observed  one  piece  of  delicacy  in 
these  children  which  is  worthy  of  record. 
They  had  been  deafening  us  for  the  last 
hundred  yards  with  petitions  for  a  sail ;  ay, 
and  they  deafened  us  to  the  same  tune  next 
morning  when  we  came  to  start ;  but  then, 
when  the  canoes  were  lying  empty,  there 
was  no  word  of  any  such  petition.  Deli- 
cacy ?  or  perhaps  a  bit  of  fear  for  the  water 
in  so  crank  a  vessel  ?  I  hate  cynicism  a 
great  deal  worse  than  I  do  the  devil  ;  unless 
perhaps,  the  two  were  the  same  thing?  And 
yet  't  is  a  good  tonic ;  the  cold  tub  and  bath- 


62  An  Inland   Voyage. 

towel^of  the  sentiments;  and  positively  ne- 
cessary to  life  in  cases  of  advanced  sensi- 
bility. 

From  the  boats  they  turned  to  my  cos- 
tume. They  could  not  make  enough  of  my 
red  sash ;  and  my  knife  filled  them  with 
awe. 

"They  make  them  like  that  in  England" 
said  the  boy  with  one  arm.  I  was  glad  he 
did  not  know  how  badly  we  make  them  in 
England  nowadays.  "They  are  for  people 
who  go  away  to  sea,"  he  added,  "and  to 
defend  one's  life  against  great  fish." 

I  felt  I  was  becoming  a  more  and  more 
romantic  figure  to  the  little  group  at  every 
word.  And  so  I  suppose  I  was.  Even  my 
pipe,  although  it  was  an  ordinary  French 
clay,  pretty  well  "trousered,"  as  they  call 
it,  would  have  a  rarity  in  their  eyes,  as  a 
thing  coming  from  so  far  away.     And  if  my 


On  the  Sambre  Canalized.  63 

feathers  were  not  very  fine  in  themselves, 
they  were  all  from  over  seas.  One  thing  in 
my  outfit,  however,  tickled  them  out  of  all 
politeness ;  and  that  was  the  bemired  con- 
dition of  my  canvas  shoes.  I  suppose  they 
were  sure  the  mud  at  any  rate  was  a  home 
product.  The  little  girl  (who  was  the 
genius  of  the  party)  displayed  her  own 
sabots  in  competition ;  and  I  wish  you  could 
have  seen  how  gracefully  and  merrily  she 
did  it. 

The  young  woman's  milk-can,  a  great  am- 
phora of  hammered  brass,  stood  some  way 
off  upon  the  sward.  I  was  glad  of  an  oppor 
tunity  to  divert  public  attention  from  myself 
and  return  some  of  the  compliments  I  had 
received.  So  I  admired  it  cordially  both  for 
form  and  color,  telling  them,  and  very  truly, 
that  it  was  as  beautiful  as  gold.  They  were 
not  surprised.     The  things  were  plainly  the 


-A 


64  An  Inland  Voyage. 

boast  of  the  country-side.  And  the  chil- 
dren expatiated  on  the  costliness  of  these 
ampliorce,  which  sell  sometimes  as  high  as 
thirty  francs  apiece  ;  told  me  how  they  were 
carried  on  donkeys,  one  on  either  side  of  the 
saddle,  a  brave  aparison  in  themselves  ;  and 
how  they  were  to  be  seen  all  over  the  dis- 
trict, and  at  the  larger  farms  in  great  num- 
ber and  of  great  size. 


PONT-SUR-SAMBRE. 

WE    ARE    PEDLARS. 

The  Cigarette  returned  with  good  news. 
There  were  beds  to  be  had  some  ten  min- 
utes' walk  from  where  we  were,  at  a  place 
called  Pont.  We  stowed  the  canoes  in  a 
granary,  and  asked  among  the  children  for 
a  guide.  The  circle  at  once  widened  round 
us,  and  our  offers  of  reward  were  received 
in  dispiriting  silence.  We  were  plainly  a 
pair  of  Bluebeards  to  the  children ;  they 
might  speak  to  us  in  public  places,  and 
where  they  had  the  advantage  of  numbers ; 
but  it  was  another  thing  to  venture  off  alone 
with  two  uncouth  and  legendary  characters, 
who  had  dropped  from  the  clouds  upon  their 


66  An  Inlajid  Voyage, 

hamlet  this  quiet  afternoon,  sashed  and  be* 
knived,  and  with  a  flavor  of  great  voyages. 
The  owner  of  the  granary  came  to  our  as- 
sistance, singled  out  one  little  fellow,  and 
threatened  him  with  corporalities  ;  or  I  sus- 
pect we  should  have  had  to  find  the  way  for 
ourselves.  As  it  was,  he  was  more  fright- 
ened at  the  granary  man  than  the  strangers, 
having  perhaps  had  some  experience  of  the 
former.  But  I  fancy  his  little  heart  must 
have  been  going  at  a  fine  rate,  for  he  kept 
trotting  at  a  respectful  distance  in  front,  and 
looking  back  at  us  with  scared  eyes.  Not 
otherwise  may  the  children  of  the  young 
world  have  guided  Jove  or  one  of  his  Olym- 
pian compeers  on  an  adventure. 

A  miry  lane  led  us  up  from  Quartes,  with 
its  church  and  bickering  windmill.  The 
hinds  were  trudging  homewards  from  the 
fields.     A  brisk  little  old  woman  passed  us 


Pont-sur-Sambre,  6j 

by.  She  was  seated  across  a  donkey  be- 
tween a  pair  of  glittering  milk-cans,  and,  as 
she  went,  she  kicked  jauntily  with  her  heels 
upon  the  donkey's  side,  and  scattered  shrill 
remarks  among  the  wayfarers^  It  was  nota- 
ble that  none  of  the  tired  men  took  the 
trouble  to  reply.  Our  conductor  soon  led 
us  out  of  the  lane  and  across  country. 
The  sun  had  gone  down,  but  the  west  in 
front  of  us  was  one  lake  of  level  gold.  The 
path  wandered  a  while  in  the  open,  and  then 
passed  under  a  trellis  like  a  bower  indefi- 
nitely prolonged.  On  either  hand  were  shad- 
owy orchards  ;  cottages  lay  low  among  the 
'  leaves  and  sent  their  smoke  to  heaven ; 
every  here  and  there,  in  an  opening,  ap- 
peared the  great  gold  face  of  the  west. 

I  never  saw  the  Cigarette  in  such  an  idyllic 
frame  of  mind.  He  waxed  positively  lyrical 
in  praise  of  country   scenes.     I  was   little 


68  An  Inland  Voyage, 

less  exhilarated  myself ;  the  mild  air  of  the 
evening,  the  shadows,  the  rich  lights,  and 
the  silence  made  a  symphonious  accompani- 
ment about  our  walk;  and  we  both  deter- 
mined to  avoid  towns  for  the  future  and 
sleep  in  hamlets. 

At  last  the  path  went  between  two  houses, 
and  turned  the  party  out  into  a  wide,  muddy 
high-road,  bordered,  as  far  as  the  eye  could 
reach  on  either  hand  by  an  unsightly  vil- 
lage. The  houses  stood  well  back,  leaving 
a  ribbon  of  waste  land  on  either  side  of  the 
road,  where  there  were  stacks  of  firewood, 
carts,  barrows,  rubbish  heaps,  and  a  little 
doubtful  grass.  Away  on  the  left,  a  gaunt 
tower  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  street. 
What  it  had  been  in  past  ages  I  know  not : 
probably  a  hold  in  time  of  war ;  but  nowa- 
days it  bore  an  illegible  dial-plate  in  its 
upper  parts,  and  near  the  bottom  an  iron 
letter-box.    , 


Pont-sur-Sa7nbre.  69 

The  inn  to  which  we  had  been  recom- 
mended at  Quartes  was  full,  or  else  the  land- 
lady did  not  like  our  looks.  I  ought  to  say, 
that  with  our  long,  damp  india-rubber  bags, 
we  presented  rather  a  doubtful  type  of  civift- 
zation :  like  rag-and-bone  men,  the  Cigarette 
imagined.  "  These  gentlemen  are  pedlars  ? " 
—  Ces  messieurs  sout  des  marchands  f — asked 
the  landlady.  And  then,  without  waiting 
for  an  answer,  which  I  suppose  she  thought 
superfluous  in  so  plain  a  case,  recommended 
us  to  a  butcher  who  lived  hard  by  the  tower 
and  took  in  travellers  to  lodge. 

Thither  went  we.  But  the  butcher  was 
flitting,  and  all  his  beds  were  taken  down. 
Or  else  he  did  n't  like  our  look.  As  a  part- 
ing shot,  we  had,  "  These  gentlemen  are 
pedlars  ?  " 

It  began  to  grow  dark  in  earnest.  We 
could    no  longer  distinguish    the  faces    of 


70  An  Inland  Voyage. 

the  people  who  passed  us  by  with  an  in- 
articulate good  evening.  And  the  house- 
holders of  Pont  seemed  very  economical 
with  their  oil,  for  we  saw  not  a  single  win- 
dow lighted  in  all  that  long  village.  I  be- 
lieve it  is  the  longest  village  in  the  world ; 
but  I  daresay  in  our  predicament  every  pace 
counted  three  times  over.  We  were  much 
cast  down  when  we  came  to  the  last  aubergey 
and,  looking  in  at  the  dark  door,  asked  tim- 
idly if  we  could  sleep  there  for  the  night. 
A  female  voice  assented,  in  no  very  friendly 
tones.  We  clapped  the  bags  down  and 
found  our  way  to  chairs. 

The  place  was  in  total  darkness,  save  a 
red  glow  in  the  chinks  and  ventilators  of  the 
stove*  But  now  the  landlady  lit  a  lamp  to 
see  her  new  guests  ;  I  suppose  the  darkness 
was  what  saved  us  another  expulsion,  for  I 
cannot   say   she  looked  gratified   at  our  ap> 


P  ent-siir-Sambre.  y  i 

pearance.  We  were  in  a  large,  bare  apart- 
ment, adorned  with  two  allegorical  prints  of 
Music  and  Painting,  and  a  copy  of  the  Law 
against  Public  Drunkenness.  On  one  side 
there  was  a  bit'  of  a  bar,  with  some  half  a 
dozen  bottles.  Two  laborers  sat  waiting 
supper,  in  attitudes  of  extreme  weariness  ;  a 
plain-looking  lass  bustled  about  with  a  sleepy 
child  of  two,  and  the  landlady  began  to  de- 
range the  pots  upon  the  stove  and  set  some 
beef-steak  to  grill. 

"  These  gentlemen  are  pedlars  ?  "  she  asked 
sharply ;  and  that  was  all  the  conversation 
forthcoming.  We  began  to  think  we  might 
be  pedlars,  after  all.  I  never  knew  a  popu- 
lation with  so  narrow  a  range  of  conjecture 
as  the  innkeepers  of  Pont-sur-Sambre.  But 
manners  and  bearing  have  not  a  wider  cur- 
rency than  bank-notes.  \You  have  only  to 
get  far   enough   out   of  your  beat,    and   all 


72  An  Inland  Voyage. 

your  accomplished  airs  will  go  for  nothing. 
These  Hainaulters  could  see  no  difference 
between  us  and  the  average  pedlar.  Indeed, 
we  had  some  grounds  for  reflection  while  the 
steak  was  getting  ready,  to  see  how  per- 
fectly they  accepted  us  at  their  own  valua- 
tion, and  how  our  best  politeness  and  best 
efforts  at  entertainment  seemed  to  fit  quite 
suitably  with  the  character  of  packmen.  At 
least  it  seemed  a  good  account  of  the  pro- 
fession in  France,  that  even  before  such 
judges  we  could  not  beat  them  at  our  own 
weapons. 

At  last  we  were  called  to  table.  The  two 
hinds  (and  one  of  them  looked  sadly  worn 
and  white  in  the  face,  as  though  sick  with 
over-work  and  under-feeding)  supped  off 
a  single  plate  of  some  sort  of  bread-berry, 
some  potatoes  in  their  jackets,  a  small  cup 
of  coffee  sweetened  with  sugar   candy,  and 


P  ont-sur-Sambre.  73 

one  tumbler  of  swipes.  The  landlady,  her 
son,  and  the  lass  aforesaid  took  the  same. 
Our  meal  was  quite  a  banquet  by  compari- 
son. We  had  some  beef-steak,  not  so  ten- 
der as  it  might  have  been,  some  of  the  pota- 
toes, some  cheese,  an  extra  glass  of  the 
swipes,  and  white  sugar  in  our  coffee. 

You  see  what  it  is  to  be  a  gentleman,  — 
I  beg  your  pardon,  what  it  is  to  be  a  pedlar. 
It  had  not  before  occurred  to  me  that  a 
pedlar  was  a  great  man  in  a  laborer's  ale- 
house ;  but  now  that  I  had  to  enact  the  part 
for  the  evening,  I  found  that  so  it  was.  He 
has  in  his  hedge  quarters  somewhat  the 
same  pre-eminency  as  the  man  who  takes  a 
private  parlor  in  a  hotel.  The  more  you 
look  into  it  the  more  infinite  are  the  class 
distinctions  among  men  ;  and  possibly,  by  a 
happy  dispensation,  there  is  no  one  at  all  at 
the  bottom  of  the   scale  ;  no   one   but   can 


/ 


^> 


74  An  Inland  Voyage. 

find  some    superiority  over  somebody   else, 
to  keep  up  his  pride  withal. 

We  were  displeased  enough  with  our  fare. 
Particularly  the  Cigarette;  for  I  tried  to 
make  believe  that  I  was  amused  with  the 
adventure,  tough  beef-steak  and  all.  Accord- 
ing to  the  Liter etian  maxim,  our  steak  should 
have  been  flavored  by  the  look  of  the  other 
people's  bread-berry  ;  but  we  did  not  find 
it  so  in  practice.  You  may  have  a  head 
knowledge  that  other  people  live  more 
poorly  than  yourself,  but  it  is  not  agreeable 
—  I  was  going  to  say,  it  is  against  the  eti- 
quette of  the  universe  —  to  sit  at  the  same 
"able  and  pick  your  own  superior  diet  from 
imong  their  crusts.  I  had  not  seen  such  a 
thing  done  since  the  greedy  boy  at  school 
with  his  birthday  cake.  It  was  odious 
enough  to  witness,  I  could  remember ;  and  I 
had  never  thought  to  play  the  part  myself, 


Pont-sur-Sambn>.  75 

But  there,  again,  you  see  what  it  is  to  be  a 
pedlar. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  poorer  classes 
in  our  country  are  much  more  charitably 
disposed  than  their  superiors  in  wealth. 
And  I  fancy  it  must  arise  a  great  deal  from 
the  comparative  indistinction  of  the  easy 
and  the  not  so  easy  in  these  ranks.  A  work- 
man or  a  pedlar  cannot  shutter  himself  off 
from  his  less  comfortable  neighbors.  If  he 
treats  himself  to  a  luxury,  he  must  do  it  in 
the  face  of  a  dozen  who  cannot.  And  what 
should  more  directly  lead  to  charitable 
thoughts  ?  .  .  .  Thus  the  poor  man,  camping 
out  in  life,  sees  it  as  it  is,  and  knows  that 
every  mouthful  he  puts  in  his  belly  has  been 
wrenched  out  of  the  fingers  of  the  hungry. 

But  at  a  certain  stage  of  prosperity,  as 
m  a  balloon  ascent,  the  fortunate  person 
passes  through   a   zone   of  clouds,   and  sub- 


76  An  Inland  Voyage. 

lunary  matters  are  thenceforward  hidden 
from  his  view.  He  sees  nothing  but  the 
heavenly  bodies,  all  in  admirable  order  and 
positively  as  good  as  new.  He  finds  himself 
surrounded  in  the  most  touching  manner  by 
the  attentions  of  Providence,  and  compares 
himself  involuntarily  with  the  lilies  and  the 
skylarks.  He  does  not  precisely  sing,  of 
course  ;  but  then  he  looks  so  unassuming  in 
his  open  Landau  !  If  all  the  world  dined  at 
one  table,  this  philosophy  would  meet  with 
some  rude  knocks.    • 


PONT-SUR-SAMBRE. 

THE    TRAVELLING   MERCHANT, 

Like  the  lackeys  in  Molieres  farce,  when 
the  true  noblemen  broke  in  on  their  high  life 
below  stairs,  we  were  destined  to  be  con- 
fronted with  a  real  pedlar.  To  make  the 
lesson  still  more  poignant  for  fallen  gentle- 
men like  us,  he  was  a  pedlar  of  infinitely 
more  consideration  than  the  sort  of  scurvy 
fellows  we  were  taken  for ;  like  a  lion  among 
mice,  or  a  ship  of  war  bearing  down  upon 
two  cock-boats.  Indeed,  he  did  not  deserve 
the  name  of  pedlar  at  all ;  he  was  a  travel- 
ling merchant. 

V  I   suppose   it   was    about    half  past  eight 
when  this  worthy,  Monsieur  Hector  Gilliard^ 


7$  An  Inland  Voyage. 

of  Maubengey  turned  up  at  the  alehouse  door 
in  a  tilt  cart  drawn  by  a  donkey,  and  cried 
cheerily  on  the  inhabitants.  He  was  a  lean, 
nervous  flibbertigibbet  of  a  man,  with  some- 
thing the  look  of  an  actor  and  something 
the  look  of  a  horse  jockey.  He  had  evi- 
dently prospered  without  any  of  the  favors 
of  education,  for  he  adhered  with  stern  sim- 
plicity to  the  masculine  gender,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  evening  passed  off  some  fancy 
futures  in  a  very  florid  style  of  architecture. 
With  him  came  his  wife,  a  comely  young 
woman,  with  her  hair  .tied  in  a  yellow  ker- 
chief, and  their  son,  a  little  fellow  of  four, 
in  a  blouse  and  military  kfyi.  It  was  nota- 
ble that  the  child  was  many  degrees  better 
dressed  than  either  of  the  parents.  We 
were  informed  he  was  already  at  a  boarding 
school ;  but  the  holidays  having  just  com- 
menced, he  was  off  to  spend  them  with  his 


P  ont-siir-Sambre.  79 

parents  on  a  cruise.  An  enchanting  holi- 
day occupation,  was  it  not  ?  to  travel  all 
day  with  father  and  mother  in  the  tilt  cart 
full  of  countless  treasures;  the  green  coun- 
try rattling  by  on  either  side,  and  the  chil- 
dren in  all  the  villages  contemplating  him 
with  envy  and  wonder.  It  is  better  fun, 
during  the  holidays,  to  be  the  son  of  a  trav- 
elling merchant,  than  son  and  heir  to  the 
greatest  cotton  spinner  in  creation.  And 
as  for  being  a  reigning  prince, — indeed,  I 
never  saw  one  if  it  was  not  Master  Gilliard  !j 

While  M.  Hector  and  the  son  of  the 
house  were  putting  up  the  donkey  and  get- 
ting all  the  valuables  under  lock  and  key, 
the  landlady  warmed  up  the  remains  of  our 
beef-steak  and  fried  the  cold  potatoes  in 
slices,  and  Madame  Gilliard  set  herself  to 
waken  the  boy,  who  had  come  far  that  day, 
and  was  peevish  and  dazzled  by  the  light. 


80  An  Inland  Voyage, 

He  was  no  sooner  awake  than  he  began  to 
prepare  himself  for  supper  by  eating  galette, 
unripe  pears,  and  cold  potatoes,  with,  so 
far  as  I  could  judge,  positive  benefit  to  his 
appetite. 

The  landlady,  fired  with  motherly  emula- 
tion, awoke  her  own  little  girl,  and  the  two 
children  were  confronted.  Master  Gilliard 
looked  at  her  for  a  moment,  very  much  as  a 
dog  looks  at  his  own  reflection  in  a  mirror 
before  he  turns  away.  He  was  at  that  time 
absorbed  in  the  galette.  His  mother  seemed 
crestfallen  that  he  should  display  so  little 
inclination  towards  the  other  sex,  and  ex- 
pressed her  disappointment  with  some  can- 
dor and  a  very  proper  reference  to  the  influ- 
ence of  years. 

Sure  enough  a  time  will  come  when  he 
will  pay  more  attention  to  the  girls,  and 
think  a  great  deal  less  of  his  mother ;  let  us 


Pont-sur-  Sam  bre.  8 1 

hope  she  will  like  it  as  well  as  she  seemed 
to  fancy.  But  it  is  odd  enough  ;  the  very 
women  who  profess  most  contempt  for  man- 
kind as  a  sex  seem  to  find  even  its  ugliest 
particulars  rather  lively  and  high-minded  in 
their  own  sons. 

The  little  girl  looked  longer  and  with 
more  interest,  probably  because  she  was  in 
her  own  house,  while  he  was  a  traveller  and 
accustomed  to  strange  sights.  And,  besides, 
there  was  no  galette  in  the  case  with  her. 

All  the  time  of  supper  there  was  nothing 
spoken  of  but  my  young  lord.  The  two 
parents  were  both  absurdly  fond  of  their 
cjiild.  Monsieur  kept  insisting  on  his  sa- 
gacity ;  how  he  knew  all  the  children  at 
school  by  name,  and  when  this  utterly  failed 
on  trial,  how  he  was  cautious  and  exact  to 
a  strange  degree,  and  if  asked  anything,  he 
would  sit  and  think  —  and  think,  and  if  he 


82  An  Inland  Voyage, 

did  not  know  it,  "  my  faith,  he  would  n't  tell 
you  at  all  —  ma  foi,  il  ne  vons  Ic  dira  pas!' 
Which  is  certainly  a  very  high  degree  of 
caution.  At  intervals,  M.  Hector  would  ap- 
peal to  his  wife,  with  his  mouth  full  of  beef- 
steak, as  to  the  little  fellow's  age  at  such  or 
such  a  time  when  he  had  said  or  done  some- 
thing memorable ;  and  I  noticed  that  Ma- 
dame usually  poohpoohed  these  inquiries. 
She  herself  was  not  boastful  in  her  vein ; 
but  she  never  had  her  fill  of  caressing  the 
child ;  and  she  seemed  to  take  a  gentle 
pleasure  in  recalling  all  that  was  fortunate 
in  his  little  existence.  No  school-boy  could 
have  talked  more  of  the  holidays  which  were 
just  beginning  and  less  of  the  black  school- 
time  which  must  inevitably  follow  after. 
She  showed,  with  a  pride  perhaps  partly 
mercantile  in  origin,  his  pockets  preposter- 
ously  swollen   with   tops,  and  whistles,  and 


Pont-sur-Sambre.  83 

string.  When  she  called  at  a  house  in  the 
way  of  business,  it  appeared  he  kept  her 
company ;  and,  whenever  a  sale  was  made, 
received  a  sou  out  of  the  profit.  Indeed, 
they  spoiled  him  vastly,  these  two  good 
people.  But  they  had  an  eye  to  his  man- 
ners, for  all  that,  and  reproved  him  for  some 
little  faults  in  breeding  which  occurred  from 
time  to  time  during  supper. 

On  the  whole,  I  was  not  much  hurt  at 
being  taken  for  a  pedlar.  I  might  think 
that  I  ate  with  greater  delicacy,  or  that  my 
mistakes  in  French  belonged  to  a  different 
order ;  but  it  was  plain  that  these  distinc- 
tions would  be  thrown  away  upon  the  land- 
lady and  the  two  laborers.  In  all  essential 
things  we  and  the  Gil  Hards  cut  very  much 
the  same  figure  in  the  alehouse  kitchen. 
M.  Hector  was  more  at  home,  indeed,  and 
took  a  higher  tone  with  the  world;  but  that 


84  An  Inland  Voyage. 

was  explicable  on  the  ground  of  his  driving 
a  donkey-cart,  while  we  poor  bodies  tramped 
afoot.  I  dare  say  the  rest  of  the  company 
thought  us  dying  with  envy,  though  in  no 
ill  sense,  to  be  as  far  up  in  the  profession  as 
the  new  arrival. 

And  of  one  thing  I  am  sure ;  that  every- 
one thawed  and  became  more  humanized 
and  conversible  as  soon  as  these  innocent 
people  appeared  upon  the  scene.  I  would 
not  very  readily  trust  the  travelling  mer- 
chant with  any  extravagant  sum  of  money, 
but  I  am  sure  his  heart  was  in  the  right 
place.  In  this  mixed  world,  if  you  can  find 
one  or  two  sensible  places  in  a  man ;  above 
all,  if  you  should  find  a  whole  family  living 
together  on  such  pleasant  terms,  you  may 
surely  be  satisfied,  and  take  the  rest  for 
granted ;  or,  what  is  a  great  deal  better, 
boldly  make  up  your  mind  that  you  can  do 


Pont-siir-Sambre.  85 

perfectly  wen  without  the  rest,  and  that  ten 
thousand  bad  traits  cannot  make  a  single 
good  one  any  the  less  good. 

It  was  getting  late.  M.  Hector  lit  a  stable 
lantern  and  went  off  to  his  cart  for  some 
arrangements,  and  my  young  gentleman  pro- 
ceeded to  divest  himself  of  the  better  part 
of  his  raiment  and  play  gymnastics  on  his 
mother's  lap,  and  thence  on  to  the  floor, 
with  accompaniment  of  laughter. 

"Are  you  going  to  sleep  alone?'  asked 
the  servant  lass. 

"There's  little  fear  of  that,"  says  Master 
Gilliard. 

"You  sleep  alone  at  school,"  objected  his 
mother.    "Come,  come,  you  must  be  a  man." 

But  he  protested  that  school  was  a  differ- 
ent matter  from  the  holidays ;  that  there 
were  dormitories  at  school,  and  silenced  the 
discussion  with  kisses,  his  mother  smiling, 
no  one  better  pleased  than  she. 


86  A?i  Inland  Voyage. 

There  certainly  was,  as  he  phrased  it, 
very  little  fear  that  he  should  sleep  alone, 
for  there  was  but  one  bed  for  the  trio.  We, 
on  our  part,  had  firmly  protested  against  one 
man's  accommodation  for  two  ;  and  we  had 
a  double-bedded  pen  in  the  loft  of  the  house, 
furnished,  beside  the  beds,  with  exactly 
three  hat  pegs  and  one  table.  There  was 
not  so  much  as  a  glass  of  water.  But  the 
window  would  open,  by  good  fortune. 

Some  time  before  I  fell  asleep  the  loft  was 
full  of  the  sound  of  mighty  snoring;  the 
Gilliards,  and  the  laborers,  and  the  people 
of  the  inn,  all  at  it,  I  suppose,  with  one  con- 
sent. The  young  moon  outside  shone  very 
clearly  over  Pont-sur-Sambre,  and  down  upon 
the  alehouse  where  all  we  pedlars  were  abed. 


'i 


ON  THE   SAMBRE   CANALIZED. 

TO  LANDRECIES. 

In  the  morning,  when  we  came  down- 
stairs the  landlady  pointed  out  to  us  two 
pails  of  water  behind  the  street  door.  "  Voila 
de  Veau  pour  vous  d'ebarbouiller"  says  she. 
And  so  there  we  made  a  shift  to  wash  our 
selves,  while  Madame  Gilliard  brushed  the 
family  boots  on  the  outer  doorstep,  and  M. 
Hector,  whistling  cheerily,  arranged  some 
small  goods  for  the  day's  campaign  in  a 
portable  chest  of  drawers,  which  formed  a 
part  of  his  baggage.  Meanwhile  the  child 
was  letting  off  Waterloo  crackers  all  over  the 
floor. 

I  wonder,  by  the  by,  what  they  call  Water- 


88  An  Inland  Voyage. 

loo  crackers  in  France ;  perhaps  Ansterlitz 
crackers.  There  is  a  great  deal  in  the  point 
of  view.  Do  you  remember  the  Frenchman 
who,  travelling  by  way  of  Southampton,  was 
put  down  in  Waterloo  Station,  and  had  to 
drive  across  Waterloo  Bridge  ?  He  had  a 
mind  to  go  home  again,  it  seems. 

Pont  itself  is  on  the  river,  but  whereas  it 
is  ten  minutes'  walk  from  Quartes  by  dry 
land,  it  is  six  weary  kilometres  by  water. 
We  left  our  bags  at  the  inn  and  walked  to 
our  canoes  through  the  wet  orchards  unen- 
cumbered. Some  of  the  children  were  there 
to  see  us  off,  but  we  were  no  longer  the 
mysterious  beings  of  the  night  before.  A 
departure  is  much  less  romantic  than  an  un- 
explained arrival  in  the  golden  evening. 
Although  we  might  be  greatly  taken  at  a 
ghost's  first  appearance,  we  should  behold 
him  vanish  with  comparative  equanimity. 


On  the  Sambre  Canalized.  89 

The  good  folks  of  the  inn  at  Pont,  when 
we  called  there  for  the  bags,  were  overcome 
with  marvelling.  At  the  sight  of  these  two 
dainty  little  boats,  with  a  fluttering  Union 
Jack  on  each,  and  all  the  varnish  shining 
from  the  sponge,  they  began  to  perceive  that 
they  had  entertained  angels  unawares.  The 
landlady  stood  upon  the  bridge,  probably 
lamenting  she  had  charged  so  little;  the  son 
ran  to  and  fro,  and  called  out  the  neighbors 
to  enjoy  the  sight  ;  and  we  paddled  away 
from  quite  a  crowd  of  rapt  observers. 
These  gentlemen  pedlars,  indeed !  Now  you 
see  their  quality  too  late. 

The  whole  day  was  showery,  with  occa- 
sional drenching  plumps.  We  were  soaked 
to  the  skin,  then  partially  dried  in  the  sun, 
,  then  soaked  once  more.  But  there  were 
some  calm  intervals,  and  one  notably,  when 
we   were  skirting   the   forest   of  Mormal,  a 


90  Aji  Inland  Voyage. 

/sinister  name  to  the  ear,  but  a  place  most 
gratifying  to  sight  and  smell.  It  looked 
solemn  along  the  river-side,  drooping  its 
boughs  into  the  water,  and  piling  them  up 
aloft  into  a  wall  of  leaves.  What  is  a  forest 
but  a  city  of  nature's  own,  full  of  hardy  and 
innocuous  living  things,  where  there  is  noth- 
ing dead  and  nothing  made  with  the  hands, 
but  the  citizens  themselves  are  the  houses 
and  public  monuments  ?  There  is  nothing  so 
much  alive  and  yet  so  quiet  as  a  woodland ; 
and  a  pair  of  people,  swinging  past  in  canoes, 
feel  very  small  and  bustling  by  comparison. 

And,  surely,  of  all  smells  in  the  world  the 
smell  of  many  trees  is  the  sweetest  and 
most  fortifying.  The  sea  has  a  rude  pis- 
tolling sort  of  odor,  that  takes  you  in  the 
nostrils  like  snuff,  and  carries  with  it  a  fine 
sentiment  of  open  water  and  tall  ships ;  but 
the  smell  of  a  forest,  which  comes  nearest 


On  the  Sambre  Canalized.  9 1 

to  this  in  tonic  quality,  surpasses  it  by  many 

degrees  in   the  quality  of  softness.     Again, 

the  smell    of  the  sea  has  little  variety,  but 

the  smell  of  a  forest  is  infinitely  changeful ; 

it  varies  with    the  hour  of   the  day,  not  in 

strength  merely,  but  in    character ;  and  the 

different  sorts  of  trees,  as  you  go  from   one 

zone  of  the  wood  to  another,    seem    t 
J 

among  different  kinds  of  atmosphere. 

ally  the '-'rosin  of  the  fir  predominates.     But 

some  woods   are   more    coquettish    in   their 

habits ;  and  the  breath  of  the  forest  Morma/, 

as   it    came   aboard    upon   us    that    showery 

afternoon,   was  perfumed'  with  nothing  less 

delicate  than  sweetbrier./ 

I   wish   our  way  had   always  lain   among 

woods.     Trees    are    the    most  civil    society. 
v 

An  old  oak  that  has  been  growing  where 
he  stands  since  before  the  Reformation, 
taller  than  many  spires,  more  stately  than  the 


92  An  Inland  Voyage- 

greater  part  of  mountains,  and  yet  a  living 
thing,  liable  to  sicknesses  and  death,  like  you 
and  me  :  is  not  that  in  itself  a  speaking  lesson 
in  history  ?  But  acres  on  acres  full  of  such 
patriarchs  contiguously  rooted,  their  green 
tops  billowing  in  the  wind,  their  stalwart 
younglings  pushing  up  about  their  knees  ; 
a  whole  forest,  healthy  and  beautiful,  giving 
color  to  the  light,  giving  perfume  to  the  air  ; 
what  is  this  but  the  most  imposing  piece 
in  nature's  rerjertory  ?  Heine  wished  to  lie 
like  Merlin  under  the  oaks  of  Broceliande. 
I  should  not  be  satisfied  with  one  tree ;  but 
if  the  wood  grew  together  like  a  banyan 
grove,  I  would  be  buried  under  the  tap-root 
of  the  whole ;  my  parts  should  circulate  from 
oak  to  oak  ;  and  my  consciousness  should  be 
diffused  abroad  in  all  the  forest,  and  give  a 
common  heart  to  that  assembly  of  green 
spires,    so  that  it,    also,  might  rejoice   in   its 


On  the  Sambre  Canalized.  93 

own  loveliness  and  dignity.  I  think  I  feel  a 
thousand  squirrels  leaping  from  bough  to 
bough  in  my  vast  mausoleum  ;  and  the  birds 
and  the  winds  merrily  coursing  over  its 
uneven,  leafy  surface. 

Alas  !  the  forest  of  Mormal  is  only  a  little 
bit  of  a  wood,  and  it  was  but  for  a  little  way 
that  we  skirted  by  its  boundaries.  And  the 
rest  of  the  time  the  rain  kept  coming  in 
squirts  and  the  wind  in  squalls,  until  one's 
heart  grew  weary  of  such  fitful,  scolding 
weather.  It  was  odd  how  the  showers  be- 
gan when  we  had  to  carry  the  boats  over 
a  lock  and  must  expose  our  legs.  They 
always  did.  This  is  a  sort  of  thing  that 
readily  begets  a  personal  feeling  against 
nature.  There  seems  no  reason  why  the 
shower  should  not  come  five  minutes  be- 
fore or  five  minutes  after,  unless  you 
suppose  an  intention    to   affront  yon.      The 


94  An  Inland  Voyage. 

Cigarette  had  a  mackintosh  which  put  him 
more  or  less  above  these  contrarieties. 
But  I  had  to  bear  the  brunt  uncovered. 
I  began  to  remember  that  nature  was  a 
woman.  My  companion,  in  a  rosier  temper, 
listened  with  great  satisfaction  to  my  jere- 
miades,  and  ironicallv  concurred.  He  in- 
stanced,  as  a  cognate  matter,  the  action  of 
the  tides,  " which,"  said  he  "was  altogether 
designed  for  the  confusion  of  canoeists,  ex- 
cept in  so  far  as  it  was  calculated  to  min- 
ister to  a  barren  vanity  on  the  part  of  the 
moon." 


/, 


At  the  last  lock,  some  little  way  out  of 
Landrecies,  I  refused  to  go  any  farther  ;  and 
sat  in  a  drift  of  rain  by  the  side  of  the  bank, 
to  have  a  reviving  pipe.  A  vivacious  old 
man,  whom  I  took  to  have  been  the  devil, 
drew  near,  and  questioned  me  about  our  jour- 
ney.    In  the  fulness  of  my  heart  I  laid  bare 


On  the  Sambre  Canalized.  95 

our  plans  before  him.  He  said  it  was  the 
silliest  enterprise  that  ever  he  heard  of. 
Why,  did  I  not  know,  he  asked  me,  that  it 
was  nothing  but  locks,  locks,  locks,  the  whole 
way?  not  to  mention  that,  at  this  season  of 
the  year,  we  whould  find  the  Oise  quite  dry  ? 
"  Get  into  a  train,  my  little  young  man," 
said  he,  "and  go  you  away  home  to  your 
parents."  I  was  so  astounded  at  the  man's 
malice  that  I  could  only  stare  at  him  in 
silence.  A  tree  would  never  have  spoken  to 
me  like  this.  At  last  I  got  out  with  some 
words.  We  had  come  from  Antwerp  already, 
I  told  him,  which  was  a  good  long  way ;  and 
we  should  do  the  rest  in  spite  of  him.  Yes, 
I  said,  if  there  were  no  other  reason,  I  would 
do  it  now,  just  because  he  had  dared  to  say 
we  could  not.  The  pleasant  old  gentleman 
looked  at  me  sneeringly,  made  an  allusion  to 
my  canoe,  and  marched  off,  wagging  his 
head. 


96  An  Inland  Voyage. 

I  was  still  inwardly  fuming  when  up  came 
a  pair  of  young  fellows,  who  imagined  I  wag 
the-  Cigarette  s  servant,  on  a  comparison,  I 
suppose,  of  my  bare  jersey  with  the  other's 
mackintosh,  and  asked  me  many  questions 
about  my  place  and  my  master's  character 
I  said  he  was  a  good  enough  fellow,  but  had 
this  aburd  voyage  on  the  head.  "  Oh,  no,  no," 
said  one,  "  you  must  not  say  that ;  it  is  not 
absurd;  it  is  very  courageous  of  him."  I 
believe  these  were  a  couple  of  angels  sent  to 
give  me  heart  again.  It  was  truly  fortifying 
to  reproduce  all  the  old  man's  insinuations, 
as  if  they  were  original  to  me  in  my  charac- 
ter of  a  malcontent  footman,  and  have  them 
brushed  away  like  so  many  flies  by  these 
admirable  young  men. 

When  I  recounted  this  affair  to  the  Ciga- 
rette, "  They  must  have  a  curious  idea  of  how 
English    servants    behave,"    says   he,  dryly, 


On  the  Sambre  Canalized.  97 

"  for  you  treated  me  like  a  brute  beast  at  the 
lock." 

I   was   a    good    deal    mortified;    but    my 
temper  had  suffered,  it  is  a  fact. 


AT  LANDRECIES. 

At  Landrecies  the  rain  still_fell  and  the 
wind  still  blew;  but  we  found  a  double- 
bedded  room  with  plenty  of  furniture,  real 
water-jugs  with  real  water  in  them,  and  din- 
ner, a  real  dinner,  not  innocent  of  real  wine. 
After  having  been  a  pedlar  for  one  night, 
and  a  butt- for  the  elements  during  the  whole 
of  the  next  day,  these  comfortable  circum- 
stances fell  on  my  heart  like  sunshine. 
There  was  an  English  fruiterer  at  dinner, 
travelling  with  a  Belgian  fruiterer ;  in  the 
evening  at  the  cafe  we  watched  our  -  com- 
patriot drop  a  good  deal  of  money  at  corks, 
and  I  don't  know  why,  but  this  pleased  us. 

It  turned  out  that  we  were  to  see  more 


At  Landrecies,  99 

of  Landrecies  than  we  expected ;  for  the 
weather  next  day  was  simply  bedlajmite/\It 
is  not  the  place  one  would  have  chosen  for 
a  day's  rest,  for  it  consists  almost  entirely 
of  fortifications.  Within  the  ramparts,  a 
few  blocks  of  houses,  a  long  row  of  barracks, 
and  a  church  figure,  with  what  countenance 
they  may,  as  the  town.  There  seems  to  be 
no  trade,  and  a  shop-keeper  from  whom  I 
bought  a  sixpenny  flint  and  steel  was  so 
much  affected  that  he  filled  my  pockets 
with  spare  flints  into  the  bargain.  The 
only  public  buildings  that  had  any  interest 
for  us  were  the  hotel  and  the  caft.  But  we 
visited  the  church.  There  lies  Marshal 
Clarke.  But  as  neither  of  us  had  ever 
heard  of  that  military  hero,  we  bore  the 
associations  of  the  spot  with  fortitude. 

In  all  garrison  towns,  guard-calls,  and  re- 
veilles, and  such  like,  make  a  fine,  romantic 


100  An  Inland  Voyage. 

interlude  in  civic  business.  Bugles,  and 
drums,  and  fifes  are  of  themselves  most  ex- 
cellent things  in  nature,  and  when  they 
carry  the  mind  to  marching  armies  and  the 
picturesque  vicissitudes  of  war  they  stir  up 
something  proud  in  the  heart.  But  in  a 
shadow  of  a  town  like  Landrecies,  with  little 
else  moving,  these  points  of  war  made  a  pro- 
portionate commotion.  Indeed,  they  were 
the  only  things  to  remember.  It  was  just 
the  place  to  hear  the  round  going  by  at 
night  in  the  darkness,  with  the  solid  tramp 
of  men  marching,  and  the  startling  rever- 
berations of  the  drum.  It  reminded  you 
that  even  this  place  was  a  point  in  the  great 
warfaring  system  of  Europe,  and  might  on 
some  future  day  be  ringed  about  with  can- 
non smoke  and  thunder,  and  make  itself  a 
name  among  strong  towns. 

The   drum,  at   any  rate,  from   its  martial 


At  Landr -cries.  I  ox 

voice  and  notable    physiological  effect,  nay, 
even  from  its  cumbrous  and  comical  shape, 
stands  alone  among  the  instruments  of  noise. 
And  if  it  be  true,  as  I  have  heard   it    said, 
that  drums  are  covered  with  asses'  skin,  what 
a  picturesque  irony  is  there  in  that !     As  if 
this    long-suffering   animal's    hide    had    not 
been   sufficiently  belabored  during  life,  now 
by   Lyonnese   costermongers,    now    by   pre- 
sumptuous   Hebrew   prophets,    it    must    be 
stripped  from  his  poor  hinder  quarters  after 
death,  stretched  on  a  drum,  and  beaten  night 
after  night  round  the  streets  of  every  garri- 
son town  in  Europe./  And  up  the  heights  of 
Alma  and  Spicheren,  and  wherever  death  has 
his  red   flag   a   flying,  and   sounds   his  own 
potent   tuck   upon   the   cannons,  there   also 
must  the  drummer  boy,  hurrying  with  white 
face  over  fallen  comrades,  batter  and  bemaul 
this  slirj_of__skin  from  the  loins  of  peaceable 
donkeys. 


102  An  Inland  Voyage. 

Generally  a  man  is  never  more  uselessly 
employed  than  when  he  is  at  this  trick  of 
bastinadoing  asses'  hide.  We  know  what 
effect  it  has  in  life,  and  how  your  dull  ass 
will  not  mend  his  pace  with  beating.  But 
in  this  state  of  mummy  and  melancholy 
survival  of  itself,  when  the  hollow  skin  re- 
verberates to  the  drummer's  wrist,  and  each 
dub-a-dub  goes  direct  to  a  man's  heart,  and 
puts  madness  there,  and  that  disposition  of 
the  pulses  which  we,  in  our  big  way  of  talk- 
ing, nickname  Heroism,  —  is  there  not  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  a  revenge  upon  the 
donkey's  persecutors  ?  Of  old,  he  might 
say,  you  drubbed  me  up  hill  and  down  dale 
and  I  must  endure;  but  now  that  I  am 
dead  those  dull  thwacks  that  were  scarcely 
audible  in  country  lanes  have  become 
stirring  music  in  front  of  the  brigade, 
and  for  every  blow  that  you  lay  on  my  old 


At  Landrecies.  103 

great-coat,  you  will  see  a  comrade  stumble 
and  fall.   / 

Not  long  after  the  drums  had  passed  the 
cafe,  the  Cigarette  and  the  Areihusa  began 
to  grow  sleepy,  and  set  out  for  the  hotel, 
which  was  only  a  door  or  two  away.  But 
although  we  had  been  somewhat  indifferent 
to  Landrecies,  Landrecies  had  not  been  indif- 
ferent to  us.  All  day,  we  learned,  people 
had  been  running  out  between  the  squalls  to 
visit  our  two  boats.  Hundreds  of  persons, 
so  said  report,  although  it  fitted  ill  with  our 
idea  of  the  town,  —  hundreds  of  persons  had 
inspected  them  where  they  lay  in  a  coal- 
shed.  We  were  becoming  lions  in  Landre- 
cies, who  had  been  only  pedlars  the  night 
before  in  Pont. 

And  now,  when  we  left  the  cafi,  we  were 
pursued  and  overtaken  at  the  hotel  door  by 
no  less  a  person  than  the  Juge  de  Paix ;  a 


104  An  Inland  Voyage. 

functionary,  as  far  as  I  can  make  out,  of  tha 
character  of  a  Scotch  Sheriff  Substitute. 
He  gave  us  his  card  and  invited  us  to  sup 
with  him  on  the  spot,  very  neatly,  very 
gracefully,  as  Frenchmen  can  do  these  things. 
It  was  for  the  credit  of  Landrecies,  said  he ; 
and  although  we  knew  very  well  how  little 
credit  we  could  do  the  place,  we  must  have 
been  churlish  fellows  to  refuse  an  invitation 
so  politely  introduced. 

The  house  of  the  judge  was  close  by ;  it 
was  a  well-appointed  bachelor's  establish- 
ment, with  a  curious  collection  of  old  brass 
warming-pans  upon  the  walls.  Some  of 
these  were  most  elaborately  carved.  It 
seemed  a  picturesque  idea  for  a  collector. 
You  could  not  help  thinking  how  many 
nightcaps  had  wagged  over  these  warming- 
pans  in  past  generations ;  what  jests  may 
have  been  made  and  kisses  taken  while  they 


At  Landrecies.  105 

were  in  service ;  and  how  often  they  had 
been  uselessly  paraded  in  the  bed  of  death. 
If  they  could  only  speak,  at  what  absurd, 
indecorous,  and  tragical  scenes  had  they  not 
been  present  ? 

The  wine  was  excellent.  When  we  made 
the  judge  our  compliments  upon  a  bottle, 
"I  do  not  give  it  you  as  my  worst,"  said 
he.  I  wonder  when  Englishmen  will  learn 
these  hospitable  graces.  They  are  worth 
learning ;  they  set  off  life  and  make  ordi- 
nary moments  ornamental. 

There  were  two  other  Landrecienses  pres- 
ent. One  was  the  collector  of  something  or 
other,  I  forget  what;  the  other,  we  were 
told,  was  the  principal  notary  of  the  place. 
So  it  happened  that  we  all  five  more  or  less 
followed  the  law.  At  this  rate,  the  talk  was 
pretty  certain  to  become  technical.  The 
Cigarette    expounded    the    poor     laws    very 


106  An  Inland  Voyage. 

magisterially.  And  a  little  later  I  found 
myself  laying  down  the  Scotch  law  of 
illegitimacy,  of  which  I  am  glad  to  say  I 
know  nothing.  The  collector  and  the  no- 
tary, who  were  both  married  men,  accused 
the  judge,  who  was  a  bachelor,  of  having 
started  the  subject.  He  deprecated  the 
charge,  with  a  conscious,  pleased  air,  just 
like  all  the  men  I  have  ever  seen,  be  they 
French  or  English.  How  strange  that  we 
should  all,  in  our  unguarded  moments,  rather 
like  to  be  thought  a  bit  of  a  rogue  with  the 
women ! 

As  the  evening  went  on  the  wine  grew 
more  to  my  taste ;  the  spirits  proved  better 
than  the  wine ;  the  company  was  genial. 
This  was  the  highest  water  mark  of  popular 
favor  on  the  whole  cruise.  After  all,  being 
in  a  judge's  house,  was  there  not  something 
semi-official  in  the  tribute  ?     And  so,  remem- 


At  Landrecies. 


107 


bering  what  a  great  country  France  is,  we 
did  full  justice  to  our  entertainment.  Lan* 
drecies  had  been  a  long  while  asleep  before 
we  returned  to  the  hotel ;  and  the  sentries 
on  the  ramparts  were  already  looking  for 
daybreak. 


SAMBRE  AND  OISE  CANAL. 

CANAL   BOATS. 

Next  day  we  made  a  late  start  in  the  rain. 
The  judge  politely  escorted  us  to  the  end  of 
the  lock  under  an  umbrella.  We  had  now 
brought  ourselves  to  a  pitch  of  humility,  in 
the  matter  of  weather,  not  often  attained 
except  in  the  Scotch  Highlands.  A  rag  of 
blue  sky  or  a  glimpse  of  sunshine  set  our 
hearts  singing  ;  and  when  the  rain  was  not 
heavy  we  counted  the  day  almost  fair. 

Long  lines  of  barges  lay  one  after   another 
along    the    canal,    many    of   them     looking 
mighty  spruce  and  ship-shape    in  their    jer. 
kin   of  Archangel  tar  picked  out  with  white 
and  green.     Some  carried  gay  iron   railings 


Sambre  and  Oise  Canal.  109 

and  quite  a  parterre  of  flower-pots.  Children 
played  on  the  decks,  as  heedless  of  the  rain 
as  if  they  had  been  brought  up  on  Loch 
Caron  side ;  men  fished  over  the  gunwale, 
some  of  them  under  umbrellas  ;  women  did 
their  washing ;  and  every  barge  boasted  its 
mongrel  cur  by  way  of  watch-dog.  Each 
one  barked  furiously  at  the  canoes,  running 
alongside  until  he  had  got  to  the  end  of  his 
own  ship,  and  so  passing  on  the  word  to  the 
dog  aboard  the  next.  We  must  have  seen 
something  like  a  hundred  of  these  embarka- 
tions in  the  course  of  that  day's  paddle, 
ranged  one  after  another  like  the  houses  in 
a  street ;  and  from  not  one  of  them  were  we 
disappointed  of  this  accompaniment.  It  was 
like  visiting  a  menagerie,  the  Cigarette  re- 
marked. 

These   little  cities  by  the  canal  side  had 
a   very  odd    effect    upon  the    mind.      They 


HO  A?i  Inland  Voyage. 

seemed,  with  their  flower-pots  and  smoking 
chimneys,  their  washings  and  dinners,  a 
rooted  piece  of  nature  in  the  scene;  and 
yet  if  only  the  canal  below  were  to  open, 
one  junk  after  another  would  hoist  sail  or 
harness  horses  and  swim  away  into  all  parts 
of  France  ;  and  the  impromptu  hamlet  would 
separate,  house  by  house,  to  the  four  winds. 
The  children  who  played  together  to-day  by 
the  Sambre  and  Oise  Canal,  each  at  his  own 
father's  threshold,  when  and  where  might 
they  next  meet  ? 

For  some  time  past  the  subject  of  barges 
had  occupied  a  great  deal  of  our  talk,  and 
we  had  projected  an  old  age  on  the  canals 
of  Europe.  It  was  to  be  the  most  leisurely 
of  progresses,  now  on  a  swift  river  at  the 
tail  of  a  steamboat,  now  waiting  horses  for 
days  together  on  some  inconsiderable  junc- 
tion.    We  should  be  seen  pottering  on  deck 


Sambre  and  Oise  Canal.  in 

in  all  the  dignity  of  years,  our  white  beards 
falling  into  our  laps.  We  were  ever  to  be 
busied  among  paint-pots,  so  that  there  should 
be  no  white  fresher  and  no  green  more  em- 
erald than  ours,  in  all  the  navy  of  the  canals. 
There  should  be  books  in  the  cabin,  and 
tobacco  jars,  and  some  old  Burgundy  as  red 
as  a  November  sunset  and  as  odorous  as  a 
violet  in  April.  There  should  be  a  flageolet 
whence  the  Cigarette,  with  cunning  touch, 
should  draw  melting  music  under  the  stars ; 
or  perhaps,  laying  that  aside,  upraise  his 
voice  —  somewhat  thinner  than  of  yore,  and 
with  here  and  there  a  quaver,  or  call  it  a 
natural  grace  note  —  in  rich  and  solemn 
psalmody. 

All  this  simmering  in  my  mind  set  me 
wishing  to  go  aboard  one  of  these  ideal 
houses  of  lounging.  I  had  plenty  to  choose 
from,  as  I  coasted  one  after  another  and  the 


112 


An  Inland  Voyage. 


dogs  bayed  at  me  for  a  vagrant.  At  last  I 
saw  a  nice  old  man  and  his  wife  looking  at 
me  with  some  interest,  so  I  gave  them  good 
day  and  pulled  up  alongside.  I  began  with 
a  remark  upon  their  dog,  which  had  some- 
what the  look  of  a  pointer  ;  thence  I  slid 
into  a  compliment  on  Madame's  flowers,  and 
thence  into  a  word  in  praise  of  their  way  of 
life. 

If  you  ventured  on  such  an  experiment  in 
England  you  would  get  a  slap  in  the  face  at 
once.  The  life  would  be  shown  to  be  a  vile 
one,  not  without  a  side  shot  at  your  better 
fortune.  Now,  what  I  like  so  much  in  France 
is  the  clear,  unflinching  recognition  by  every- 
body of  his  own  luck.  (They  all  know  on  " 
which  side  their  bread  is  buttered,  and  take 
a  pleasure  in  showing  it  to  others,  which  is 
surely  the  better  part  of  religion. )  And  they 
scorn  to  make  a  poor  mouth  over  their  pov- 


Sambre  and  Oise  Canal.  113 

erty,  which  I  take  to  be  the  better  part  of 
manliness.  I  have  heard  a  woman  in  quite 
a  better  position  at  home,  with  a  good  bit 
of  money  in  hand,  refer  to  her  own  child 
with  a  horrid  whine  as  "a  poor  man's  child." 
I  would  not  say  such  a  thing  to  the  Duke  of 
Westminster.  And  the  French  are  full  of 
this  spirit  of  independence.  Perhaps  it  is 
the  result  of  republican  institutions,  as  they 
call  them.  Much  more  likely  it  is  because 
there  are  so  few  people  really  poor  that  the 
whiners  are  not  enough  to  keep  each  other 
in  countenance. 

The  people  on  the  barge  were  delighted 
to  hear  that  I  admired  their  state.  They 
understood  perfectly  well,  they  told  me,  how 
Monsieur  envied  them.  Without  doubt 
Monsieur  was  rich,  and  in  that  case  he 
might  make  a  canal-boat  as  pretty  as  a  villa 
— jolt  comme   un   chdteau.      And  with    that 

8 


114  An  Inland  Voyage, 

they  invited  me  on  board  their  own  water 
villa.  They  apologized  for  their  cabin  ;  they 
had  not  been  rich  enough  to  make  it  as  it 
ought  to  be. 

"The  fire  should  have  been  here,  at  this 
side,"  explained  the  husband.  "Then  one 
might  have  a  writing-table  in  the  middle  — 
books— and"  (comprehensively)  "all.  It 
would  be  quite  coquettish — ca  serait  tout- 
d-fait  coquet!'  And  he  looked  about  him 
as  though  the  improvements  were  already 
made.  It  was  plainly  not  the  first  time  that 
he  had  thus  beautified  his  cabin  in  imagina- 
tion ;  and  when  next  he  makes  a  hit,  I 
should  expect  to  see  the  writing-table  in  the 

middle. 

Madame  had  three  birds  in  a  cage.  They 
were  no  great  thing,  "she  explained.  Fine 
birds  were  so  dear.  They  had  sought  to 
get    a     Hollandais    last    winter    in     Rouen 


Sambre  and  Oise  Canal.  115 

(Rouen,  thought  I  ;  and  is  this  whole  man- 
sion, with  its  dogs,  and  birds,  and  smoking 
chimneys,  so  far  a  traveller  as  that,  and  as 
homely  an  object  among  the  cliffs  and  or- 
chards of  the  Seine  as  on  the  green  plains 
of  Sambre  f) — they  had  sought  to  get  a 
Hollandais  last  winter  in  Rouen ;  but  these 
cost  fifteen  francs  apiece  —  picture  it  —  fif- 
teen francs ! 

"  Pour  un  tout  petit  oiseau  —  For  quite  a 
little  bird,"  added  the  husband. 

As  I  continued  to  admire,  the  apologetics 
died  away,  and  the  good  people  began  to 
brag  of  their  barge  and  their  happy  condi- 
tion in  life,  as  if  they  had  been  Emperor  and 
Empress  of  the  Indies.  It  was,  in  the 
Scotch  phrase,  a  good  hearing,  and  put  me 
in  good-humor  with  the  world.  If  people 
knew  what  an  inspiriting  thing  it  is  to  hear 
1  man  boasting,  so  long  as  he  boasts  of  what 


Ii6  An  Inland  Voyage, 

he  really  has,  I  believe  they  would  do  it 
more  freely  and  with  a  better  grace. 

They  began  to  ask  about  our  voyage. 
You  should  have  seen  how  they  sympa- 
thized. They  seemed  half  ready  to  give  up 
their  barge  and  follow  us.  But  these  cana- 
letti  are  only  gypsies  semi-domesticated. 
The  semi-domestication  came  out  in  rather 
a  pretty  form.  Suddenly  Madame's  brow 
darkened.  "  Cependant"  she  began,  and 
then  stopped ;  and  then  began  again  by 
asking  me  if  I  were  single. 

"  Yes,"  said  I. 

"  And  your  friend  who  went  by  just  now  ?" 

He  also  was  unmarried. 

Oh,  then,  all  was  well.  She  could  not 
have  wives  left  alone  at  home ;  but  since 
there  were  no  wives  in  the  question,  we  were 
doing  the  best  we  could. 

"  To  see  about  one  in  the  world,"  said  the 


Sambre  and  Oise  Canal.  117 

husband,  "  il  ny  a  que  ca  —  there  is  nothing 
else  worth  while.  A  man,  look  you,  who 
sticks  in  his  own  village  like  a  bear,"  he 
went  on,  "  very  well,  he  sees  nothing.  And 
then  death  is  the  end  of  all.  And  he  has 
seen  nothing." 

Madame  reminded  her  husband  of  an  Eng- 
lishman who  had  come  up  this  canal  in  a 
steamer. 

"  Perhaps  Mr.  Moens  in  the  Ytene"  I  sug- 
gested. 

"That's  it,"  assented  the  husband.  "He 
had  his  wife  and  family  with  him,  and  ser- 
vants. He  a.  me  ashore  at  all  the  locks  and 
asked  the  name  of  the  villages,  whether  from 
boatmen  or  lock-keepers  ;  and  then  he  wrote, 
wrote  them  down.  Oh,  he  wrote  enormously ! 
I  suppose  it  was  a  wager." 

A  wager  was  a  common  enough  explana- 
tion for  our  own  exploits,  but  it  seemed  an 
original  reason  for  taking  notes. 


THE   OISE  IN   FLOOD. 

Before  nine  next  morning  the  two  canoes 
were  installed  on  a  light  country  cart  at 
Etreux ;  and  we  were  soon  following  them 
along  the  side  of  a  pleasant  valley  full  of 
hop-gardens  and  poplars.  Agreeable  vil- 
lages lay  here  and  there  on  the  slope  of 
the  hill  :  notably,  Tupigny,  with  the  hop- 
poles  hanging  their  garlands  in  the  very 
street,  and  the  houses  clustered  with  grapes. 
There  was  a  faint  enthusiasm  on  our  pas- 
sage ;  weavers  put  their  heads  to  the  win- 
dows ;  children  cried  out  in  ecstasy  at 
sight  of  the  two  "  boaties  "  —  barquettes;  and 
bloused  pedestrians,  who  were  acquainted 
with  our  charioteer,  jested  with  him  on  the 
nature  of  his  freight. 


The  Oise  iiz  Flood.  1 19 

We  had  a  shower  or  two,  but  light  and 
flying.  The  air  was  clean  and  sweet  among 
all  these  green  fields  and  green  things  grow- 
ing. There  was  not  a  touch  of  autumn  in 
the  weather.  And  when,  at  Vadcncourt,  we 
launched  from  a  little  lawn  opposite  a  mill, 
the  sun  broke  forth  and  set  all  the  leaves 
shining  in  the  valley  of  the  Oise. 

The  river  was  swollen  with  the  long  rains. 
From  Vadencourt  all  the  way  to  Origny  it 
ran  with  ever-quickening  speed,  taking  fresh 
heart  at  each  mile,  and  racing  as  though  it 
already  smelt  the  sea.  The  water  was  yel- 
low and  turbulent,  swung  with  an  angry 
eddy  among  half-submerged  willows,  and 
made  an  angry  clatter  along  stony  shores. 
The  course  kept  turning  and  turning  in  a 
narrow  and  well-timbered  valley.  Now  the 
river  would  approach  the  side,  and  run  glid- 
ing along  the   chalky  base  of  the  hill,  and 


*y 


120  An  Inland  Voyage. 

show  us  a  few  open  colza  fields  among  the 
trees.  Now  it  would  skirt  the  garden-walls 
of  houses,  where  we  might  catch  a  glimpse 
through  a  doorway,  and  see  a  priest  pacing 
in  the  checkered  sunlight.  Again,  the  fo- 
liage closed  so  thickly  in  front  that  there 
seemed  to  be  no  issue ;  only  a  thicket  of 
willows  overtopped  by  elms  and  poplars, 
under  which  the  river  ran  flush  and  fleet, 
and  where  a  kingfisher  flew  past  like  a  piece 
of  the  blue  sky.  On  these  different  manifes- 
tations the  sun  poured  its  clear  and  catholic 
looks.  The  shadows  lay  as  solid  on  the 
swift  surface  of  the  stream  as  on  the  stable 
meadows.  The  light  sparkled  golden  in  the 
dancing  poplar  leaves,  and  brought  the  hills 
into  communion  with  our  eyes.  And  all  the 
while  the  river  never  stopped  running  or 
took  breath  ;  and  the  reeds  along  the  whole 
valley  stood  shivering  from  top  to  toe. 


The  Oise  in  Flood.  121 

There  should  be  some  myth  (but  if  there 
is,  I  know  it  not)  founded  on  the  shivering 
of  the  reeds.  There  are  not  many  things  in 
nature  more  striking  to  man's  eye.  It  is 
such  an  eloquent  pantomime  of  terror ;  and 
to  see  such  a  number  of  terrified  creatures 
taking  sanctuary  in  every  nook  along  the 
shore  is  enough  to  infect  a  silly  human  with 
alarm.  Perhaps  they  are  only  acold,  and  no 
wonder,  standing  waist  deep  in  the  stream. 
Or,  perhaps,  they  have  never  got  accustomed 
to  the  speed  and  fury  of  the  river's  flux,  or 
the  miracle  of  its  continuous  body.  Pan 
once  played  upon  their  forefathers ;  and  so, 
by  the  hands  of  his  river,  he  still  plays  upon 
these  later  generations  down  all  the  val- 
ley of  the  Oise ;  and  plays  the  same  air,  both 
sweet  and  shrill,  to  tell  us  of  the  beauty  and 
the  terror  of  the  world. 

The  canoe  was  like  a  leaf  in  the  current. 


122  An  Inland  Voyage. 

It  took  it  up  and  shook  it,  and  carried  it 
masterfully  away,  like  a  Centaur  carrying  off 
a  nymph  To  keep  some  command  on  our 
direction  required  hard  and  diligent  plying 
of  the  paddle.  The  river  was  in  such  a 
hurry  for  the  sea  !  Every  drop  of  water  ran 
in  a  panic,  like  so  many  people  in  a  fright- 
ened crowd.  But  what  crowd  was  ever  so 
numerous  or  so  single-minded  ?  All  the 
objects  of  sight  went  by  at  a  dance  measure  ; 
the  eyesight  raced  with  the  racing  river; 
the  exigencies  of  every  moment  kept  the 
pegs  screwed  so  tight  that  our  being  quiv- 
ered like  a  well-tuned  instrument,  and  the 
blood  shook  off  its  lethargy,  and  trotted 
through  all  the  highways  and  byways  of 
the  veins  and  arteries,  and  in  and  out  of  the 
heart,  as  if  circulation  were  but  a  holiday 
journey  and  not  the  daily  moil  of  threescore 
years  and  ten.     The  reeds  might  nod  their 


The  Oise  in  Flood.  123 

heads  in  warning,  and  with  tremulous  ges- 
tures tell  how  the  river  was  as  cruel  as  it 
was  strong  and  cold,  and  how  death  lurked 
in  the  eddy  underneath  the  willows.  But 
the  reeds  had  to  stand  where  they  were ; 
and  those  who  stand  still  are  always  timid 
advisers.     As  for  us,  we  could  have  shouted 

1 

aloud.  If  this  lively  and  beautiful  river 
were,  indeed,  a  thing  of  death's  contrivance, 
the  old  ashen  rogue  had  famously  outwitted 
himself  with  us.  I  was  living  three  to  the 
minute.  I  was  scoring  points  against  him 
every  stroke  of  my  paddle,  every  turn  of 
the  stream.  I  have  rarely  had  better  profit 
of  my  life. 

For  I  think  we  may  look  upon  our  little 
private  war  with  death  somewhat  in  this 
light.  If  a  man  knows  he  will  sooner  or 
later  be  robbed  upon  a  journey,  he  will  have 
a  bottle  of  the  best  in  every  inn,  and  look 


124  An  Inland  Voyage. 

upon  all  his  extravagances  as  so  much  gained 
upon  the  thieves.  And  above  all,  where,  in- 
stead of  simply  spending,  he  makes  a  profit- 
able investment  for  some  of  his  money, 
when  it  will  be  out  of  risk  of  loss.  So  every 
bit  of  brisk  living,  and  above  all  when  it  is 
healthful,  is  just  so  much  gained  upon  the 
wholesale  filcher,  death.  !  We  shall  have  the 
less  in  our  pockets,  the  more  in  our  stom- 


achs,  when  he  cries,  Stand  and  deliver.)  A 
swift  stream  is  a  favorite  artifice  of  his, 
and  one  that  brings  him  in  a  comfortable 
thing  per  annum  ;  but  when  he  and  I  come 
to  settle  our  accounts  I  shall  whistle  in  his 
face  for  these  hours  upon  the  upper  Oise. 
,  Towards  afternoon  we  got  fairly  drunken 
with  the  sunshine  and  the  exhilaration  of 
the  pace.  We  could  no  longer  contain  our- 
selves and  our  content.  The  canoes  were 
too  small  for  us  ;  we  must  be  out  and  stretch 


The  Oise  in  Flood.  125 

ourselves  on  shore.  And  so  in  a  green 
meadow  we  bestowed  our  limbs  on  the  grass, 
and  smoked  deifying  tobacco,  and  proclaimed 
the  world  excellent.  It  was  the  last  good 
hour  of  the  day,  and  I  dwell  upon  it  with 
extreme  complacency. 

On  one  side  of  the  valley,  high  upon  the 
chalky  summit  of  the  hill,  a  ploughman  with 
his  team  appeared  and  disappeared  at  regular 
intervals.  At  each  revelation  he  stood  still 
for  a  few  seconds  against  the  sky,  for  all  the 
world  (as  the  Cigarette  declared)  like  a  toy 
Burns  who  had  just  ploughed  up  the  Moun- 
tain Daisy.  He  was  the  only  living  thing 
within  view,  unless  we  are  to  count  the  river. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  valley  a  group  of 
red  roofs  and  a  belfry  showed  among  the 
foliage.  Thence  some  inspired  bell-ringer 
made  the  afternoon  musical  on  a  chime  of 
bells.     There  was  something  very  sweet  and 


126  An  Inland  Voyage. 

taking  in  the  air  he  played,  and  we  thought 
we  had  never  heard  bells  speak  so  intelligi- 
bly or  sing  so  melodiously  as  these.  It 
must  have  been  to  some  such  measure  that 
the  spinners  and  the  young  maids  sang, 
"  Come  away,  Death,"  in  the  Shakespearian 
Illyria.  There  is  so  often  a  threatening 
note,  something  blatant  and  metallic,  in  the 
voice  of  bells,  that  I  believe  we  have  fully 
more  pain  than  pleasure  from  hearing  them  ; 
but  these,  as  they  sounded  abroad,  now  high, 
now  low,  now  with  a  plaintive  cadence  that 
caught  the  ear  like  the  burden  of  a  popular 
song,  were  always  moderate  and  tunable, 
and  seemed  to  fall  in  with  the  spirit  of  still, 
rustic  places,  like  the  noise  of  a  waterfall  or 
the  babble  of  a  rookery  in  spring.  I  could 
have  asked  the  bell-ringer  for  his  blessing, 
good,  sedate  old  man,  who  swung  the  rope 
so  gently  to  the  time  of  his  meditations.     I 


The  Oise  in  Flood,  12/ 

could  have  blessed  the  priest  or  the  heritors, 
or  whoever  may  be  concerned  with  such 
affairs  in  France,  who  had  left  these  sweet 
old  bells  to  gladden  the  afternoon,  and  not 
held  meetings,  and  made  collections,  and 
had  their  names  repeatedly  printed  in  the 
local  paper,  to  rig  up  a  peal  of  brand-new, 
brazen,  Birming/ia7Ji-he3.rted  substitutes,  who 
should  bombard  their  sides  to  the  provoca- 
tion of  a  brand-new  bell-ringer,  and  fill  the 
echoes  of  the  valley  with  terror  and  riot. 

At  last  the  bells  ceased,  and  with  their 
note  the  sun  withdrew.  The  piece  was  at 
an  end  ;  shadow  and  silence  possessed  the 
valley  of  the  Oise.  We  took  to  the  paddle 
with  glad  hearts,  like  people  who  have  sat 
out  a  noble  performance  and  return  to  work. 
The  river  was  more  dangerous  here  ;  it  ran 
swifter,  the  eddies  were  more  sudden  and 
violent.     All  the  way  down  we  had  had  our 


128  An  Inland  Voyage. 

fill  of  difficulties.  Sometimes  it  was  a  weir 
which  could  be  shot,  sometimes  one  so  shal- 
low and  full  of  stakes  that  we  must  withdraw 
the  boats  from  the  water  and  carry  them 
round.  But  the  chief  sort  of  obstacle  was  a 
consequence  of  the  late  high  winds.  Every 
two  or  three  hundred  yards  a  tree  had  fallen 
across  the  river,  and  usually  involved  more 
than  another  in  its  fall.  Often  there  was 
free  water  at  the  end,  and  we  could  steer 
round  the  leafy  promontory  and  hear  the 
water  sucking  and  bubbling  among  the 
twigs.  Often,  again,  when  the  tree  reached 
from  bank  to  bank,  there  was  room,  by  lying 
close,  to  shoot  through  underneath,  canoe 
and  all.  Sometimes  it  was  necessary  to  get 
out  upon  the  trunk  itself  and  pull  the  boats 
across ;  and  sometimes,  where  the  stream 
was  too  impetuous  for  this,  there  was  noth- 
ing  for   it   but    to   land   and   "  carry   over." 


The  Oise  in  Flood.  129 

This  made  a  fine  series  of  accidents  in  the 
lay's  career,  and  kept  us  aware  of  ourselves. 
-  Shortly  after  our  re-embarkation,  while  I 
was  leading  by  a  long  way,  and  still  full  of 
a  noble,  exulting  spirit  in  honor  of  the  sun, 
the  swift  pace,  and  the  church  bells,  the 
river  made  one  of  its  leonine-  pounces  round 
a  corner,  and  I  was  aware  of  another  fallen 
tree  within  a  stone-cast.  I  had  my  back- 
board down  in  a  trice,  and  aimed  for  a  place 
where  the  trunk  seemed  high  enough  above 
the  water,  and  the  branches  not  too  thick  to 
let  me  slip  below.  When  a  man  has  just 
vowed  eternal  brotherhood  with  the  universe 
he  is  not  in  a  temper  to  take  great  determi- 
nations coolly,  and  this,  which  might  have 
Seen  a  very  important  determination  for  me, 
had  not  been  taken  under  a  happy  star. 
The  tree  caught  me  about  the  chest,  and 
while  I  was  yet  struggling  to  make  less  of 


130  An  Inland  Voyage. 

myself  and  get  through,  the  river  took  the 
matter  out  of  my  hands  and  bereaved  me  of 
my  boat.  The  Arethusa  swung  round  broad- 
side on,  leaned  over,  ejected  so  much  of  me 
as  still  remained  on  board,  and,  thus  disen- 
cumbered, whipped  under  the  tree,  righted, 
and  went  merrily  away  down  stream. 

I  do  not  know  how  long  it  was  before  I 
scrambled  on  to  the  tree  to  which  I  was  left 
clinging,  but  it  was  longer  than  I  cared 
about.  My  thoughts  were  of  a  grave  and 
almost  sombre  character,  but  I  still  clung  to 
my  paddle.  The  stream  ran  away  with  my 
heels  as  fast  as  I  could  pull  up  my  shoulders, 
and  I  seemed,  by  the  weight,  to  have  all  the 
water  of  the  Oise  in  my  trousers  pockets. 
You  can  never  know,  till  you  try  it,  what  a 
dead  pull  a  river  makes  against  a  man. 
Death  himself  had  me  by  the  heels,  for  this 
was  his  last  ambuscade,  and  he  must  now 


The  Oise  in  Flood.  131 

join  personally  in  the  fray.  And  still  I  held 
to  my  paddle.  At  last  I  dragged  myself  on 
to  my  stomach  on  the  trunk,  and  lay  there  a 
breathless  sop,  with  a  mingled  sense  of 
humor  and  injustice.  A  poor  figure  I  must 
have  presented  to  Burns  upon  the  hill-top 
with  his  team.  But  there  was  the  paddle  in 
my  hand.  On  my  tomb,  if  ever  I  have  one, 
I  mean  to  get  these  words  inscribed:  "He 
clung  to  his  paddle." 

The  Cigarette  had  gone  past  awhile  be 
fore;  for,  as  I  might  have  observed,  if  I 
had  been  a  little  less  pleased  with  the  uni- 
verse at  the  moment,  there  was  a  clear  way 
round  the  tree-top  at  the  farther  side.  He 
had  offered  his  services  to  haul  me  out,  but, 
as  I  was  then  already  on  my  elbows,  I  had 
declined,  and  sent  him  down  stream  after  the 
truant  Arethusa.  The  stream  was  too  rapid 
for  a  man  to  mount  with  one  canoe,  let  alone 


J32  An  Inland  Voyage. 

two,  upon  his  hands.  So  I  crawled  along 
the  trunk  to  shore,  and  proceeded  down  the 
meadows  by  the  river-side.  I  was  so  cold 
that  my  heart  was  sore.  I  had  now  an  idea 
of  my  own  why  the  reeds  so  bitterly  shiv- 
ered. I  could  have  given  any  of  them  a 
lesson.  The  Cigarette  remarked,  facetiously, 
that  he  thought  I  was  "  taking  exercise  "  as 
I  drew  near,  until  he  made  out  for  certain 
that  I  was  only  twittering  with  cold.  I  had 
a  rub-down  with  a  towel,  and  donned  a  dry 
suit  from  the  india-rubber  bag.  But  I  was 
not  my  own  man  again  for  the  rest  of  the 
voyage.  I  had  a  queasy  sense  that  I  wore 
my  last  dry  clothes  upon  my  body.  The 
struggle  had  tired  me  ;  and,  perhaps,  whether 
I  knew  it  or  not,  I  was  a  little  dashed  in 
spirit.  The  devouring  element  in  the  uni- 
verse had  leaped  out  against  me,  in  this 
green  valley  quickened  by  a  running  stream. 


The  Oise  in  Flood.  133 

The  bells  were  all  very  pretty  in  their  way, 
but  I  had  heard  some  of  the  hollow  notes  of 
Pans  music.  Would  the  wicked  river  drag 
me  down  by  the  heels,  indeed  ?  and  look  so 
beautiful  all  the  time  ?  Nature's  good-humor 
was  only  skin  deep,  after  all. 

There  was  still  a  long  way  to  go  by  the 
winding  course  of  the  stream,  and  darkness 
had  fallen,  and  a  late  bell  was  ringing  in 
Origny  Sainte-Benoite  when  we  arrived. 


ORIGNY  SAINTE-BENOITE. 

A    BY-DAY. 

The  next  day  was  Sunday,  and  the  church 
bells  had  little  rest ;  indeed,  I  do  not  think 
I  remember  anywhere  else  so  great  a  choice 
of  services  as  were  here  offered  to  the  de- 
vout. And  while  the  bells  made  merry  in 
the  sunshine,  all  the  world  with  his  dog 
was  out  shooting  among  the  beets  and  colza. 

In  the  morning  a  hawker  and  his  wife 
went  down  the  street  at  a  foot-pace,  singing 
to  a  very  slow,  lamentable  music,  "  0  France, 
mes  amours!'  It  brought  everybody  to  the 
door;  and  when  our  landlady  called  in  the 
man  to  buy  the  words,  he  had  not  a  copy  of 
them   left.     She   was  not   the   first  nor  the 


Origny  Sainte-Benoite.  135 

second  who  had  been  taken  with  the  song. 
There  is  something  very  pathetic  in  the  love 
of  the  French  people,  since  the  war,  for 
dismal  patriotic  music-making.  I  have 
watched  a  forester  from  Alsace  while  some 
one  was  singing  " Les  mallieurs  de  la  France" 
at  a  baptismal  party  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Fontainebleau.  He  arose  from  the  table  and 
took  his  son  aside,  close  by  where  I  was 
standing.  "  Listen,  listen,"  he  said,  bear- 
ing on  the  boy's  shoulder,  "  and  remember 
this,  my  son."  A  little  after  he  went  out 
into  the  garden  suddenly,  and  I  could  hear 
him  sobbing  in  the  darkness. 

The  humiliation  of  their  arms  and  the  loss 
y  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  made  a  sore  pull 
on  the  endurance  of  this  sensitive  people  ; 
and  their  hearts  are  still  hot,  not  so  much 
against  Germany  as  against  the  Empire.  In 
what  other  country  will  you  find  a   patriotic 


136  An  Inland  Voyage. 

ditty  bring  all  the  world  into  the  street  ? 
But  affliction  heightens  love  ;  and  we  shall 
never  know  we  are  Englishmen  until  we  have 
lost  India.  Independent  America  is  still  the 
cross  of  my  existence ;  I  cannot  think  of 
Farmer  George  without  abhorrence ;  and  I 
never  feel  more  warmly  to  my  own  land  than 
when  I  see  the  stars  and  stripes,  and  remem- 
ber what  our  empire  might  have  been. 

The  hawker's  little  book,  which  I  pur- 
chased, was  a  curious  mixture.  Side  by 
side  with  the  flippant,  rowdy  nonsense  of  the 
Paris  music-halls  there  were  many  pastoral 
pieces,  not  without  a  touch  of  poetry,  I 
thought,  and  instinct  with  the  brave  indepen^ 
dence  of  the  poorer  class  in  France.  There 
you  might  read  how  the  wood-cutter  gloried 
in  his  axe,  and  the  gardener  scorned  to  be 
ashamed  of  his  spade.  It  was  not  very  well 
written,  this  poetry  of  labor,  but   the  pluck 


Origny  Sainte-Benoite.  137 

of  the  sentiment  redeemed  what  was  weak 
or  wordy  in  the  expression.  The  martial 
and  the  patriotic  pieces,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  tearful,  womanish  productions  one  and 
all.  The  poet  had  passed  under  the  Candine 
Forks ;  he  sang  for  an  army  visiting  the 
tomb  of  its  old  renown,  with  arms  reversed  ; 
and  sang  not  of  victory,  but  of  death.  There 
was  a  number  in  the  hawker's  collection 
called  Consents  Francais,  which  may  rank 
among  the  most  dissuasive  war-lyrics  on 
record.  It  would  not  be  possible  to  fight  at 
all  in  such  a  spirit.  The  bravest  conscript 
would  turn  pale  if  such  a  ditty  were  struck 
up  beside  him  on  the  morning  of  battle ;  and 
whole  regiments  would  pile  their  arms  to  its 
tune. 

If  Fletcher  of  Saltoun  is  in  the  right  about 
the  influence  of  national  songs,  you  would 
say  France  was  come  to  a  poor  pass.     But 


138  An  Inla?id  Voyage. 

the  thing  will  work  its  own  cure,  and  a 
sound-hearted  and  courageous  people  weary 
at  length  of  snivelling  over  their  disasters. 
Already  Paul  Deroutide  has  written  some 
manly  military  verses.  There  is  not  much 
of  the  trumpet  note  in  them,  perhaps,  to  stir 
a  man's  heart  in  his  bosom  ;  they  lack  the 
lyrical  elation,  and  move  slowly ;  but  they 
are  written  in  a  grave,  honorable,  stoical 
spirit,  which  should  carry  soldiers  far  in  a 
good  cause.  One  feels  as  if  one  would  like 
to  trust  Daoulede  with  something.  It  will 
be  happy  if  he  can  so  far  inoculate  his  fellow- 
countrymen  that  they  may  be  trusted  with 
their  own  future.  And,  in  the  mean  time, 
here  is  an  antedote  to  "  French  Conscripts  " 
,a.nd  much  other  doleful  versification. 

We  had  left  the  boats  over  night  in  the 
custody  of  one  whom  we  shall  call  Carnival 
I  did  not  properly  catch  his  name,  and  per- 


Origny  Sainte-Benoite.  139 

haps  that  was  not  unfortunate  for  him,  as  I 
am  not  in  a  position  to  hand  him  down  with 
honor  to  posterity.  To  this  person's  prem- 
ises we  strolled  in  the  course  of  the  day,  and 
found  quite  a  little  deputation  inspecting  the 
canoes.  There  was  a  stout  gentleman  with 
a  knowledge  of  the  river,  which  he  seemed 
eager  to  impart.  There  was  a  very  elegant 
young  gentleman  in  a  black  coat,  with  a 
smattering  of  English,  who  led  the  talk  at 
once  to  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge  boat 
race.  And  then  there  were  three  hand- 
some girls  from  fifteen  to  twenty  ;  and  an 
old  gentleman  in  a  blouse,  with  no  teeth  to 
speak  of,  and  a  strong  country  accent. 
Quite  the  pick  of  Origny,  I  should  suppose. 

The  Cigarette  had  some  mysteries  to  per- 
form with  his  rigging  in  the  coach-house  ;  so 
I  was  left  to  do  the  parade  single-handed. 
I  found  myself  very  much  of  a  hero  whether 


140  An  Inland  Voyage. 

I  would  or  not.  The  girls  were  full  of  little 
shudderings  over  the  dangers  of  our  journey. 
And  I  thought  it  would  be  ungallant  not  to 
take  my  cue  from  the  ladies.  My  mishap  of 
yesterday,  told  in  an  off-hand  way,  produced 
a  deep  sensation.  It  was  Othello  over  again, 
with  no  less  than  three  Desdemonas  and  a 
sprinkling  of  sympathetic  senators  in  the 
background.  Never  were  the  canoes  more 
flattered,  or  flattered  more  adroitly. 

"  It  is  like  a  violin,"  cried  one  of  the  girls 
m  an  ecstasy. 

"  I  thank  you  for  the  word,  mademoiselle," 
said  I.  "  All  the  more  since  there  are  peo- 
ple who  call  out  to  me  that  it  is  like  a 
coffin." 

"  Oh !  but  it  is  really  like  a  violin.  It  is 
finished  like  a  violin,"  she  went  on. 

"And  polished  like  a  violin,"  added  a 
senator. 


Origiiy  Samte-Benofte.  141 

"  One  has  only  to  stretch  the  cords,"  con- 
cluded another,  "  and  then  tum-tumty-tum  "  ; 
he  imitated  the  result  with  spirit. 

Was  not  this  a  graceful  little  ovation  ? 
Where  this  people  finds  the  secret  of  its 
pretty  speeches  I  cannot  imagine,  unless 
the  secret  should  be  no  other  than  a  sincere 
desire  to  please.  But  then  no  disgrace  is 
attached  in  Fra?ice  to  saying  a  thing  neatly ; 
whereas  in  England,  to  talk  like  a  book  is  to 
give  in  one's  resignation  to  society. 

The  old  gentleman  in  the  blouse  stole 
into  the  coach-house,  and  somewhat  irrele- 
vantly informed  the  Cigarette  that  he  was 
the  father  of  the  three  girls  and  four  more ; 
quite  an  exploit  for  a  Frenchman. 

"  You  are  very  fortunate,"  answered  the 
Cigarette  politely. 

And  the  old  gentleman,  having  apparently 
gained  his  point,  stole  away  again. 


142  An  Inla7id  Voyage, 

We  all  got  very  friendly  together.  The 
girls  proposed  to  start  with  us  on  the  mor- 
row, if  you  please.  And,  jesting  apart,  every 
one  was  anxious  to  know  the  hour  of  our 
departure.  Now,  when  you  are  going  to 
crawl  into  your  canoe  from  a  bad  launch,  a 
crowd,  however  friendly,  is  undesirable,  and 
so  we  told  them  not  before  twelve,  and 
mentally  determined  to  be  off  by  ten  at 
latest. 

Towards  evening  we  went  abroad  again  to 
post  some  letters.  It  was  cool  and  pleasant ; 
the  long  village  was  quite  empty,  except  for 
one  or  two  urchins  who  followed  us  as  they 
might  have  followed  a  menagerie ;  the  hills 
and  the  tree-tops  looked  in  from  all  sides 
through  the  clear  air,  and  the  bells  were 
chiming  for  yet  another  service. 

Suddenly  we  sighted  the  three  girls,  stand- 
ing,  with  a  fourth   sister,  in  front  of  a  shop 


Origny  Sai?tte-Benoite.  143 

on  the  wide  selvage  of  the  roadway.  We 
had  been  very  merry  with  them  a  little 
while  ago,  to  be  sure.  But  what  was  the 
etiquette  of  Origny  ?  Had  it  been  a  country 
road,  of  course  we  should  have  spoken  to 
them  ;  but  here,  under  the  eyes  of  all  the 
gossips,  ought  we  to  do  even  as  much  as 
bow  ?     I  consulted  the  Cigai'ette. 

"  Look,"  said  he. 

I  looked.  There  were  the  four  girls  on 
the  same  spot;  but  now  four  backs  were 
turned  to  us,  very  upright  and  conscious. 
Corporal  Modesty  had  given  the  word  of 
command,  and  the  well-disciplined  picket 
had  gone  right-about-face  like  a  single  per- 
son. They  maintained  this  formation  all  the 
while  we  were  in  sight ;  but  we  heard  them 
tittering  among  themselves,  and  the  girl 
whom  we  had  not  met  laughed  with  open 
mouth,  and  even  looked  over  her  shoulder  at 


144  An  Inland   Voyage. 

the  enemy.  I  wonder  was  it  altogether 
modesty  after  all,  or  in  part  a  sort  of  country 
provocation  ? 

As  we  were  returning  to  the  inn  we 
beheld  something  floating  in  the  ample  field 
of  golden  evening  sky,  above  the  chalk  cliffs 
and  the  trees  that  grow  along  their  summit. 
It  was  too  high  up,  too  large,  and  too  steady 
for  a  kite  ;  and,  as  it  was  dark,  it  could  not 
be  a  star.  For,  although  a  star  were  as 
black  as  ink  and  as  rugged  as  a  walnut,  so 
amply  does  the  sun  bathe  heaven  with  radi- 
ance  that  it  would  sparkle  like  a  point  of 
light  for  us.  The  village  was  dotted  with 
people  with  their  heads  in  air ;  and  the  chil- 
dren were  in  a  bustle  all  along  the  street 
and  far  up  the  straight  road  that  climbs  the 
hill,  where  we  could  still  see  them  running 
in  loose  knots.  It  was  a  balloon,  we  learned, 
which  had  left  Saint  Quentin  at  half  past  five 


Origny  Sainte-Benoite.  145 

that  evening.  Mighty  composedly  the  ma- 
jority of  the  grown  people  took  it.  But  we 
were  English,  and  were  soon  running  up  the 
hill  with  the  best.  Being  travellers  our- 
selves in  a  small  way,  we  would  fain  have 
seen  these  other  travellers  alight. 

The  spectacle  was  over  by  the  time  we 
gained  the  top  of  the  hill.  All  the  gold  had 
withered  out  of  the  sky,  and  the  balloon  had 
disappeared.  Whither  ?  I  ask  myself  ;  caught 
up  into  the  seventh  heaven  ?  or  come  safely 
to  land  somewhere  in  that  blue,  uneven  dis- 
tance, into  which  the  roadway  dipped  and 
melted  before  our  eyes  ?  Probably  the  aero- 
nauts were  already  warming  themselves  at  a 
farm  chimney,  for  they  say  it  is  cold  in  these 
unhomely  regions  of  the  air.  The  night  fell 
swiftly.  Roadside  trees  and  disappointed 
sightseers,  returning  through  the  meadows, 
stood  out  in  black  against  a  margin  of  low, 
10 


146  An  Inland  Voyage. 

red  sunset.  It  was  cheerfuller  to  face  the 
other  way,  and  so  down  the  hill  we  went, 
with  a  full  moon,  the  color  of  a  melon,  swing- 
ing high  above  the  wooded  valley,  and  the 
white  cliffs  behind  us  faintly  reddened  by 
the  fire  of  the  chalk-kilns. 

The  lamps  were  lighted,  and  the  salads 
were  being  made  in  Origny  Sainte-Bcnoite  by 
the  river. 


ORIGNY   SAINTE-BENOITE. 


THE    COMPANY   AT   TABLE. 

Although  we  came  late  for  dinner,  the 
company  at  table  treated  us  to  sparkling 
wine.  "That  is  how  we  are  in  France"  said 
one.  "  Those  who  sit  down  with  us  are  ouv 
friends."     And  the  rest  applauded. 

They  were  three  altogether,  and  an  odd 
trio  to  pass  the  Sunday  with. 

Two  of  them  were  guests  like  ourselves, 
both  men  of  the  north.  One  ruddy,  and  of  a 
full  habit  of  body,  with  copious  black  hair 
and  beard,  the  intrepid  hunter  of  France, 
who  thought  nothing  so  small,  not  even  a 
lark  or  a  minnow,  but  he  might  vindicate  his 
prowess  by  its   capture.     For  such  a  great, 


148  An  Inland  Voyage. 

healthy  man,  his  hair  flourishing  like  Sam- 
sons,  his  arteries  running  buckets  of  red 
blood,  to  boast  of  these  infinitesimal  exploits, 
produced  a  feeling  of  disproportion  in  the 
world,  as  when  a  steam-hammer  is  set  to 
cracking  nuts.  The  other  was  a  quiet,  sub- 
dued person,  blond,  and  lymphatic^  and  sad, 
with  something  the  look  of  a  Dane  :  "  Tristes 
tetes  de  Danois ! "  as  Gaston  Lafenestre  used 
to  say. 

I  must  not  let  that  name  go  by  without  a 
word  for  the  best  of  all  good  fellows,  now 
gone  down  into  the  dust.  We  shall  never 
again  see  Gaston  in  his  forest  costume, — he 
was  Gaston  with  all  the  world,  in  affec- 
tion, not  in  disrespect,  —  nor  hear  him  wake 
the  echccs  of  Fontaincbleau  with  the  woodland 
horn.  Never  again  shall  his  kind  smile  put 
n^acf?  among  all  races  of  artistic  men,  and 
•nxnU'd  the   Englishman  at   home   in   France. 


Origny  Sainte-Benoite.  149 

Never  more  shall  the  sheep,  who  were  not 
more  innocent  at  heart  than  he,  sit  all  un- 
consciously for  his  industrious  pencil.  He 
died  too  early,  at  the  very  moment  when  he 
was  beginning  to  put  forth  fresh  sprouts  and 
blossom  into  something  worthy  of  himself ; 
and  yet  none  who  knew  him  will  think  he 
lived  in  vain.  I  never  knew  a  man  so  little, 
for  whom  yet  I  had  so  much  affection  ;  and 
I  find  it  a  good  test  of  others,  how  much 
they  had  learned  to  understand  and  value 
him.  1  His  was,  indeed,  a  good  influence  in 
life  while  he  was  still  among  us ;  he  had  a 
fresh  laugh  ;  it  did  you  good  to  see  him  ;  and, 
however  sad  he  may  have  been  at  heart,  he 
always  bore  a  bold  and  cheerful  countenance 
and  took  fortune's  worst  as  it  were  the 
showers  of  spring.  But  now  his  mother  sits 
alone  by  the  side  of  Fontainebleau  woods, 
where  he  gathered  mushrooms  in  his  hardy 
and  penurious  youth. 


150  An  Inland  Voyage. 

Many  of  his  pictures  found  their  way 
across  the  channel ;  besides  those  which 
were  stolen,  when  a  dastardly  Yankee  left 
him  alone  in  London  with  two  English 
pence,  and,  perhaps,  twice  as  many  words  of 
English.  If  any  one  who  reads  these  lines 
should  have  a  scene  of  sheep,  in  the  manner 
of  yacqites,  with  this  fine  creature's  signature, 
let  him  tell  himself  that  one  of  the  kindest 
and  bravest  of  men  has  lent  a  hand  to  deco- 
rate his  lodging.  There  may  be  better  pic 
tures  in  the  National  Gallery;  but  not  a 
painter  among  the  generations  had  a  better 
heart.  Precious  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  of 
humanity,  the  Psalms  tell  us,  is  the  death  of 
his  saints.  It  had  need  to  be  precious ;  for 
it  is  very  costly,  when,  by  a  stroke,  a  mother 
is  left  desolate,  and  the  peace-maker  and 
peace-looker  of  a  whole  society  is  laid  in  the 
ground  with  Cccsar  and  the  Twelve  Apostles. 


Origny  Sainte-Benoite.  151 

There  is  something  lacking  among  the 
oaks  of  Fontainebleau  ;  and  when  the  dessert 
comes  in  at  Barbizon,  people  look  to  the 
door  for  a  figure  that  is  gone. 

The  third  of  our  companions  at  Orig7iy  was 
no  less  a  person  than  the  landlady's  husband  ; 
not  properly  the  landlord,  since  he  worked 
himself  in  a  factory  during  the  day,  and 
came  to  his  own  house  at  evening  as  a  guest ; 
a  man  worn  to  skin  and  bone  by  perpetual 
excitement,  with  baldish  head,  sharp  features, 
and  swift,  shining  eyes.  On  Saturday,  de- 
scribing some  paltry  adventure  at  a  duck- 
hunt,  he  broke  a  plate  into  a  score  of  frag- 
ments. Whenever  he  made  a  remark  he 
would  look  all  round  the  table  with  his  chin 
raised  and  a  spark  of  green  light  in  either 
eye,  seeking  approval.  His  wife  appeared 
now  and  again  in  the  doorway  of  the  room, 
where  she  was  superintending  dinner,  with  a 


152  An  Inland  Voyage. 

"  Henri,  you  forget  yourself,"  or  a  "  Henri 
you  can  surely  talk  without  making  such  a 
noise."  Indeed,  that  was  what  the  honest 
fellow  could  not  do.  On  the  most  trifling 
matter  his  eyes  kindled,  his  fist  visited  the 
table,  and  his  voice  rolled  abroad  in  changeful 
thunder.  I  never  saw  such  a  petard  of  a  man  ; 
I  think  the  devil  was  in  him.  He  had  two 
favorite  expressions,  "  It  is  logical,"  or  illogi- 
cal, as  the  case  might  be ;  and  this  other 
thrown  out  with  a  certain  bravado,  as  a  man 
might  unfurl  a  banner,  at  the  beginning  of 
many  a  long  and  sonorous  story  :  "  I  am  a 
proletarian,  you  see."  Indeed,  we  saw  it  very 
well."  God  forbid  that  ever  I  should  find 
him  handling  a  gun  in  Paris  streets.  That 
will  not  be  a  good  moment  for  the  general 
public. 

\l  thought  his  two  phrases  very  much  rep- 
resented the  good  and  evil  of  his  class,  and, 


Origny  Sainte-Bcnoite.  153 

to  some  extent,  of  his  country.  It  is  a 
strong  thing  to  say  what  one  is,  a::d  not  be 
ashamed  of  it ;  even  although  it  be  in  doubt- 
ful taste  to  repeat  the  statement  too  often  in 
one  evening.  I  should  not  admire  it  in  a 
duke,  of  course  ;  but  as  times  go  the  trait  is 
honorable  in  a  workman.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  not  at  all  a  strong  thing  to  put 
one's  reliance  upon  logic  ;  and  our  own  logic 
particularly,  for  it  is  generally  wrong.  We 
never  know  where  we  are  to  end  if  once  we 
begin  following  words  or  doctors.  There  is 
an  upright  stock  in  a  man's  own  heart  that 
is  trustier  than  any  syllogism ;  and  the 
eyes,  and  the  sympathies,  and  appetites 
know  a  thing  or  two  that  have  never  yet 
been  stated  in  controversy.  Reasons  are  as 
plentiful  as  blackberries ;  and,  like  fisticuffs, 
they  serve  impartially  with  all  sides.  Doc- 
trines do  not  stand  or  fall  by  their  proofs 


154  -An  Inland  Voyage. 

and  are  only  logical  in  so  far  as  they  are 
cleverly  put.  An  able  controversialist  no 
more  than  an  able  general  demonstrates  the 
justice  of  his  cause.  But  France  is  all  gone 
wandering  after  one  or  two  big  words  ;  it 
will  take  some  time  before  they  can  be  satis- 
fied that  they  are  no  more  than  words,  how- 
ever big  ;  and,  when  once  that  is  done,  they 
will  perhaps  find  logic  less  diverting. 

The  conversation  opened  with  details  of 
the  day's  shooting.  When  all  the  sportsmen 
of  a  village  shoot  over  the  village  territory 
pro  indiviso,  it  is  plain  that  many  questions 
of  etiquette  and  priority  must  arise. 

"  Here  now,"  cried  the  landlord,  brandish- 
ing a  plate,  "here  is  a  field  of  beet-root. 
Well.  Here  am  I,  then.  I  advance,  do  I 
not  ?  Eh  bicn  !  sacristi"  ;  and  the  statement, 
waxinsr  louder,  rolls  off  into  a  reverberation 
of  oaths,  the  speaker  glaring  about  for  sym- 


Origny  Sainte-Benoite.  155 

pathy,  and  everybody  nodding  his  head  to 
him  in  the  name  of  peace. 

The  ruddy  Northman  told  some  tales  of  his 
own  prowess  in  keeping  order :  notably  one 
of  a  Marquis. 

"  Marquis,"  I  said,  "  if  you  take  another 
step  I  fire  upon  you.  You  have  committed 
a  dirtiness,  Marquis." 

Whereupon,  it  appeared,  the  Marquis 
touched    his    cap    and    withdrew. 

The  landlord  applauded  noisily.  "  It  was 
well  done,"  he  said.  "  He  did  all  that  he 
could.  He  admitted  he  was  wrong."  And 
then  oath  upon  oath.  He  was  no  marquis- 
lover,  either,  but  he  had  a  sense  of  justice  in 
him,  this  proletarian  host  of  ours. 

From  the  matter  of  hunting,  the  talk 
veered  into  a  general  comparison  of  Paris 
and  the  country.  The  proletarian  beat  the 
table  like  a  drum  in  praise  of  Paris.     "  What 


156  An  Inland  Voyage. 

is   Paris  ?     Paris   is   the   cream    of   France, 

There  are  no  Parisians ;  it  is  you,  and  I,  and 

everybody  who  are  Parisians.     A  man   has 

eighty  chances   per   cent   to  get    on  in  the 

world   in    Paris."      And    he    drew   a   vivid 

sketch  of  the  workman  in  a  den  no  bigger 

than  a  dog-hutch,  making  articles  that  were 

to  go  all   over   the  world.     "  Eh   bien}    quoi% 

c  est  magnifique,  ca!  "  cried  he. 

The  sad  Northman  interfered  in  praise  of 

a  peasant's  life ;  he   thought    Paris  bad  for 

\S   men  and  women/"  Centralization,"  said  he  — 

But    the   landlord  was  at    his  throat  in    a 

moment.     It  was  all  logical,  he  showed  him, 

and   all    magnificent.       "What   a   spectacle! 

What  a  glance  for  an  eye  ! "     And  the  dishes 

■ 
reeled  upon  the  table  under  a  cannonade  of 

blows. 

Seeking  to  make  peace,  I  threw  in  a  word 

in  praise  of  the  liberty  of  opinion  in  France 


Origny  Sainte-Benotte.  157 

I  could  hardly  have  shot  more  amiss.  There 
was  an  instant  silence  and  a  great  wagging 
of  significant  heads.  They  did  not  fancy 
the  subject,  it  was  plain,  but  they  gave  me 
to  understand  that  the  sad  Northman  was  a 
martyr  on  account  of  his  views.  "Ask  him 
a  bit,"  said  they.     "Just  ask  him." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  he  in  his  quiet  way,  an. 
swering  me,  although  I  had  not  spoken,  "I 
am  afraid  there  is  less  liberty  of  opinion  in 
France  than  you  may  imagine."  And  with 
that  he  dropped  his  eyes  and  seemed  to 
consider  the  subject  at  an  end. 

Our  curiosity  was  mightily  excited  at  this. 
How,  or  why,  or  when  was  this  lymphatic 
bagman  martyred  ?  We  concluded  at  once 
it  was  on  some  religious  question,  and 
brushed  up  our  memories  of  the  Inquisition, 
which  were  principally  drawn  from  Poes 
horrid  story,  and  the  sermon  in  Tristram 
Shandy,  I  believe. 


153  An  Inland  Voyage. 

On  the  morrow  we  had  an  opportunity  of 
going  further  into  the  question  ;  for  when 
we  rose  very  early  to  avoid  a  sympathizing 
deputation  at  our  departure,  we  found  the 
hero  up  before  us.  He  was  breaking  his 
fast  on  white  wine  and  raw  onions,  in  order 
to  keep  up   the  character  of  martyr,  I  con- 

r 

elude.  We  had  a  long  conversation,  and 
made  out  what  we  wanted  in  spite  of  his 
reserve.  But  here  was  a  truly  curious  cir- 
cumstance. It  seems  possible  for  two 
Scotchmen  and  a  Frenchman  to  discuss  dur- 
ing a  long  half-hour,  and  each  nationality 
have  a  different  idea  in  view  throughout. 
It  was  not  till  the  very  end  that  we  dis- 
covered his  heresy  had  been  political,  or 
that  he  suspected  our  mistake.  The  terms 
and  spirit  in  which  he  spoke  of  his  political 
beliefs  were,  in  our  eyes,  suited  to  religious 
beliefs.     And  vice  vcrsd. 


Origny  Sainte-Benoite.  159 

Nothing  could  be  more  characteristic  of 
the  two  countries.  Politics  are  the  religion 
of  France ;  as  Nanty  Ewart  would  have  said, 
"  A  d — d  bad  religion,"  while  we,  at  home, 
keep  most  of  our  bitterness  for  all  differ- 
ences about  a  hymn-book  or  a  Hebrew  word 
which,  perhaps,  neither  of  the  parties  can 
translate.  And  perhaps  the  misronception 
is  typical  of  many  others  that  may  never  be 
cleared  up ;  not  only  between  people  of  dif- 
ferent race,  but  between  those  of  different  sex. 

As  for  our  friend's  martyrdom,  he  was  a 
—-Communist,  or  perhaps  only  a  Communard, 
which  is  a  very  different  thing,  and  had  lost 
one  or  more  situations  in  consequence.  I 
think  he  had  also  been  rejected  in  marriage ; 
but  perhaps  he  had  a  sentimental  way  of 
considering  business  which  deceived  me. 
He  was  a  mild,  gentle  creature,  any  way, 
and  I  hope  he  has  got  a  better  situation  and 
married  a  more  suitable  wife  since  then. 


DOWN   THE   OISE. 

TO    MOY. 

Carnival  notoriously  cheated  us  at  first. 
Finding  us  easy  in  our  ways,  he  regretted 
having  let  us  off  so  cheaply,  and,  taking  me 
aside,  told  me  a  cock-and-bull  story,  with  the 
moral  of  another  five  francs  for  the  narrator. 
The  thing  was  palpably  absurd ;  but  I  paid 
up,  and  at  once  dropped  all  friendliness  of 
manner  and  kept  him  in  his  place  as  an  in- 
ferior, with  freezing  British  dignity.  He 
saw  in  a  moment  that  he  had  gone  too  far 
and  killed  a  willing  horse ;  his  face  fell ;  I 
am  sure  he  would  have  refunded  if  he  could 
only  have  thought  of  a  decent  pretext.  He 
wished  me  to  drink  with   him,  but   I  would 


Down  the  Oise.  161 

none  of  his  drinks.  He  grew  pathetically 
tender  in  his  professions,  but  I  walked  be- 
side him  in  silence  or  answered  him  in 
stately  courtesies,  and,  when  we  got  to  the 
landing-place,  passed  the  word  in  English 
slang  to  the  Cigarette. 

In  spite  of  the  false  scent  we  had  thrown 
out  the  day  before,  there  must  have  been 
fifty  people  about  the  bridge.  We  were  as 
pleasant  as  we  could  be  with  all  but  Carni- 
val. We  said  good  by,  shaking  hands  with 
the  old  gentleman  who  knew  the  river  and 
the  young  gentleman  who  had  a  smattering 
of  English,  but  never  a  word  for  Carnival. 
Poor  Carnival,  here  was  a  humiliation.  He 
who  had  been  so  much  identified  with  the 
canoes,  who  had  given  orders  in  our  name, 
who  had  shown  off  the  boats  and  even  the 
boatmen  like  a  private  exhibition  of  his  own, 
to  be  now  so  publicly  shamed  by  the  lions 
ii 


j 62  An  Inland  Voyage. 

of  his  caravan  !  I  never  saw  anybody  look 
more  crestfallen  than  he.  He  hung  in  the 
background,  coming  timidly  forward  ever 
and  again  as  he  thought  he  saw  some  symp- 
tom of  a  relenting  humor,  and  falling  hur- 
riedly back  when  he  encountered  a  cold 
stare.  Let  us  hope  it  will  be  a  lesson  to 
him. 

I  would  not  have  mentioned  Carnival's 
peccadillo  had  not  the  thing  been  so  uncom- 
mon in  France.  This,  for  instance,  was  the 
only  case  of  dishonesty  or  even  sharp  prac- 
tice in  our  whole  voyage.  We  talk  very 
much  about  our  honesty  in  England.  It  is 
a  good  rule  to  be  on  your  guard  wherever 
you  hear  great  professions  about  a  very  little 
piece  of  virtue.  If  the  English  could  only 
hear  how  they  are  spoken  of  abroad,  they 
might  confine  themselves  for  a  while  to 
remedying  the  fact,  and  perhaps  even  when 
that  was  done,  give  us  fewer  of  their  airs 


Down  the  Oise.  163 

The  young  ladies,  the  graces   of    Origny, 
were  not  present  at  our  start,  but  when  we 
got   round  to  the  second  bridge,   behold,  it 
was  black  with  sight-seers  !     We  were  loudly 
cheered,  and  for  a  good  way  below   young 
lads    and    lasses   ran   along   the    bank,  still 
cheering.     What  with  current  and  paddling, 
we   were   flashing   along   like   swallows.     It 
was  no  joke  to  keep  up  with  us  upon  the 
woody  shore.     But  the  girls  picked  up  their 
skirts,  as  if  they  were  sure  they  had  good 
ankles,  and  followed  until  their  breath  was 
out.      The   last   to   weary   were    the    three 
graces   and   a   couple   of    companions ;    and 
just  as  they,  too,  had  had  enough,  the  fore- 
most of  the  three  leaped  upon  a  tree-stump 
and  kissed  her  hand  to  the  canoeists.     Not 
Diana   herself,    although   this   was    more   of 
a  Venus,  after  all,  could  have  done  a  graceful 
thing  more  gracefully.    "  Come  back  again  ! ' 


164  An  Inland  Voyage. 

she  cried;  and  all  the  others  echoed  her; 
and  the  hills  about  Origny  repeated  the 
words,  "Come  back."  But  the  river  had  us 
round  an  angle  in  a  twinkling,  and  we  were 
alone  with  the  green  trees  and  running 
water. 

Come  back  ?  There  is  no  coming  back, 
young  ladies,  on  the  impetuous  stream  of 
life. 

The  merchant  bows  unto  the  seaman's  star, 
The  ploughman  from  the  sun  his  season  takes. 

And  we  must  all  set  our  pocket  watches  by 
the  clock  of  fate.  There  is  a  headlong, 
forthright  tide,  that  bears  away  man  with 
his  fancies  like  straw,  and  runs  fast  in  time 
and  space.  It  is  full  of  curves  like  this, 
your  winding  river  of  the  Oise ;  and  lingers 
and  returns  in  pleasant  pastorals ;  and  yet, 
rightly  thought  upon,  never  returns  at  all. 
For  though  it  should  revisit  the  same  acre  of 


Down  the  Oise.  165 

meadow  in  the  same  hour,  it  will  have  made 
an  ample  sweep  between  whiles  ;  many  little 
streams  will  have  fallen  in ;  many  exhala- 
tions risen  towards  the  sun  ;  and  even  al- 
though it  were  the  same  acre,  it  will  not 
be  the  same  river  Oise.  And  thus,  O  graces 
of  Origny,  athough  the  wandering  fortune 
of  my  life  should  carry  me  back  again  to 
where  you  await  death's  whistle  by  the  river, 
that  will  not  be  the  old  I  who  walks  the 
street ;  and  those  wives  and  mothers,  say, 
will  those  be  you  ?^ 

There  was  never  any  mistake  about  the 
Oise,  as  a  matter  of  fact.  In  these  upper 
reaches  it  was  still  in  a  prodigious  hurry  for 
the  sea.  It  ran  so  fast  and  merrily,  through 
all  the  windings  of  its  channel,  that  I  strained 
my  thumb  fighting  with  the  rapids,  and  had 
to  paddle  all  the  rest  of  the  way  with  one 
hand  turned  up.     Sometimes  it  had  to  serve 


1 66  An  Inland  Voyage, 

mills  ;  and  being  still  a  little  river,  ran  very 
dry  and  shallow  in  the  mean  while.  We  had 
to  put  our  legs  out  of  the  boat,  and  shove 
ourselves  off  the  sand  of  the  bottom  with 
our  feet.  And  still  it  went  on  its  way  sing- 
ing among  the  poplars,  and  making  a  green 
valley  in  the  world.  After  a  good  woman, 
and  a  good  book,  and  tobacco,  there  is  noth- 
ing so  agreeable  on  earth  as  a  river.  I  for- 
gave it  its  attempt  on  my  life ;  which  was, 
after  all,  one  part  owing  to  the  unruly  winds 
of  heaven  that  had  blown  down  the  tree,  one 
part  to  my  own  mismanagement,  and  only  a 
third  part  to  the  river  itself,  and  that  not 
out  of  malice,  but  from  its  great  preoccupa- 
tion over  its  own  business  of  scettins:  to  the 
sea.  A  difficult  business,  too ;  for  the  de- 
tours it  had  to  make  are  not  to  be  counted. 
The  geographers  seem  to  have  given  up  the 
attempt ;  for  I  found  no  map  represent  the 


Down  the  Oise.  167 

infinite  contortion  of  its  course.  A  fact  will 
say  more  than  any  of  them.  After  we  had 
been  some  hours,  three,  if  I  mistake  not, 
flitting  by  the  trees  at  this  smooth,  break- 
neck gallop,  when  we  came  upon  a  hamlet 
and  asked  where  we  were,  we  had  got  no 
further  than  four  kilometres  (say  two  miles 
and  a  half)  from  Origny.  If  it  were  not  for 
the  honor  of  the  thing  (in  the  Scotch  say- 
ing), we  might  almost  as  well  have  been 
standing  still. 

We  lunched  on  a  meadow  inside  a  parallel- 
ogram of  poplars.  The  leaves  danced  and 
prattled  in  the  wind  all  round  about  us.  The 
river  hurried  on  meanwhile,  and  seemed  to 
chide  at  our  delay.  Little  we  cared.  The 
river  knew  where  it  was  going  ;  not  so  we  ; 
the  less  our  hurry,  where  we  found  good  quar- 
ters, and  a  pleasant  theatre  for  a  pipe.  At 
that    hour    stock-brokers    were   shouting  in 


1 68  An  Inland  Voyage. 

Paris  Bourse  for  two  or  three  per  cent ;  but  we 
minded  them  as  little  as  the  sliding  stream, 
and  sacrificed  a  hecatomb  of  minutes  to  the 
gods  of  tobacco  and  digestion.  Hurry  is 
the  resource  of  the  faithless.  Where  a  man 
can  trust  his  own  heart,  and  those  of  his 
friends,  to  morrow  is  as  good  as  to-day.  And 
if  he  die  in  the  mean  while,  why,  then,  there 
he  dies,  and  the  question  is  solved. 

We  had  to  take  to  the  canal  in  the  course  of 
the  afternoon ;  because  where  it  crossed  thq, 
river  there  was,  not  a  bridge,  but  a  siphon. 
If  it  had  not  been  for  an  excited  fellow  on 
the  bank  we  should  have  paddled  right  into 
the  siphon,  and  thenceforward  not  paddled 
any  more.  We  met  a  man,  a  gentleman,  on 
the  tow-path,  who  was  much  interested  in 
our  cruise.  And  I  was  witness  to  a  strange 
seizure  of  lying  suffered  by  the  Cigarette;  who, 
because  his   knife   came   from    Norway,  nar- 


Down  the  Oise.  169 

rated  all  sorts  of  adventures  in  that  country, 
where  he  has  never  been.  He  was  quite 
feverish  at  the  end,  and  pleaded  demoniacal 
possession. 

yMoy  (pronounce  Moy)  was  a  pleasant  little 
village,  gathered  round  a  chateau  in  a  moat. 
The  air  was  perfumed  with  hemp  from 
neighboring  fields.  At  the  Golden  Sheep 
we  found  excellent  entertainment.  German 
shells  from  the  siege  of  La  Fere,  Nurnberg 
figures,  gold-fish  in  a  bowl,  and  all  manner  of 
knick-knacks,  embellished  the  public  room. 
The  landlady  was  a  stout,  plain,  short- 
sighted, motherly  body,  with  something  not 
far  short  of  a  genius  for  cookery.  She  had  a 
guess  of  her  excellence  herself.  After  every 
dish  was  sent  in,  she  would  come  and  look 
on  at  the  dinner  for  a  while,  with  puckered, 
blinking  eyes.  "  C  est  bon,  riest-ce  pas?"  she 
would  say  ;    and,  when  she   had   received   ? 


170  A?i  Inla?id  Voyage. 

proper  answer,  she  disappeared  into  the 
kitchen.  That  common  French  dish,  par- 
tridge and  cabbages,  became  a  new  thing  in 
my  eyes  at  the  Golden  Sheep ;  and  many  sub- 
sequent dinners  have  bitterly  disappointed 
me  in  consequence.  Sweet  was  our  rest  in 
the  Golden  Sheep  at  Moy.    / 


LA  FERE  OF  CURSED  MEMORY. 


We  lingered  in  Moy  &  good  part  of  the 
day,  for  we  were  fond  of  being  philosophical, 
and  scorned  long  journeys  and  early  starts 
on  principle.  The  place,  moreover,  invited 
to  repose.  People  in  elaborate  shooting  cos- 
tumes sallied  from  the  ch&teau  with  guns  and 
game-bags  ;  and  this  was  a  pleasure  in  itself, 
to  remain  behind  while  these  elegant  pleas- 
ure-seekers took  the  first  of  the  morning. 
In  this  way  all  the  world  may  be  an  aristo- 
crat, and  play  the  duke  among  marquises, 
and  the  reigning  monarch  among  dukes,  if 
he  will  only  outvie  them  in  tranquillity.  An 
imperturbable  demeanor  comes  from  perfect 


patience.     Quiet  minds  cannot  be  perplexed 

C.SE 


c 


172  An  Inland  Voyage. 

or  frightened,  but  go  on.  in  fortune  or  mis- 
fortune at  their  own  private  pace,  like  a 
clock  during  a  thunder-storm. 

We  made  a  very  short  day  of  it  to  La 
Fire ;  but  the  dusk  was  falling  and  a  small 
rain  had  begun  before  we  stowed  the  boats. 
La  Fire  is  a  fortified  town  in  a  plain,  and  has 
two  belts  of  rampart.  Between  the  first  and 
the  second  extends  a  region  of  waste  land 
and  cultivated  patches.  Here  and  there 
along  the  wayside  were  posters  forbidding- 
trespass  in  the  name  of  military  engineer- 
ing. At  last  a  second  gateway  admitted 
us  to  the  town  itself.  Lighted  windows 
looked  gladsome,  whiffs  of  comfortable  cook- 
ery came  abroad  upon  the  air.  The  town 
was  full  of  the  military  reserve,  out  for  the 
French  Autumn  manoeuvres,  and  the  reserv- 
ists walked  speedily  and  wore  their  formi- 
dable great-coats.     It  was  a  fine  night  to  be 


La  Fere  of  Cursed  Memory.  173 

within  doors  over  dinner,  and  hear  the  rain 

upon  the  windows.      . — 

J^^he  Cigarette  and  I  could  not  sufficiently 
congratulate  each  other  on  the  prospect,  for 
we  had  been  told  there  was  a  capital  inn  at 
La  Fere.  Such  a  dinner  as  we  were  going 
to  eat !  such  beds  as  we  were  to  sleep  in ! 
and  all  the  while  the  rain  raining  on  house- 
less folk  over  all  the  poplared  country-side. 
It  made  our  mouths  water.  The  inn  bore 
the  name  of  some  woodland  animal,  stag, 
or  hart,  or  hind,  I  forget  which.  But  I  shall 
never  forget  how  spacious  and  how  emi- 
nently habitable  it  looked  as  we  drew  near. 
The  carriage  entry  was  lighted  up,  not  by 
intention,  but  from  the  mere  superfluity  of 
fire  and  candle  in  the  house.  A  rattle  of 
many  dishes  came  to  our  ears  ;  we  sighted 
a  great  field  of  tablecloth ;  the  kitchen 
glowed  like  a  forge  and  smelt  like  a  garden 
of  things  to  eat. 


174  An  Inland  Voyage. 

Into  this,  the  inmost  shrine  and  physiologi- 
cal heart  of  a  hostelry,  with  all  its  furnaces 
in  action  and  all  its  dressers  charged  with 
viands,  you  are  now  to  suppose  us  making 
our  triumphal  entry,  a  pair  of  damp  rag-and- 
bone  men,  each  with  a  limp  india-rubber  bag 
vpon  his  arm.  I  do  not  believe  I  have  a 
sound  view  of  that  kitchen  ;  I  saw  it  through 
a  sort  of  glory,  but  it  seemed  to  me  crowded 
with  the  snowy  caps  of  cookmen,  who  all 
turned  round  from  their  saucepans  and 
looked  at  us  with  surprise.  There  was  no 
doubt  about  the  landlady,  however ;  there 
she  was,  heading  her  army,  a  flushed,  angry 
woman,  full  of  affairs.  Her  I  asked  politely 
—  too  politely,  thinks  the  Cigarette — if  we 
could  have  beds,  she  surveying  us  coldly 
from  head  to  foot. 

"  You  will  find  beds  in  the  suburb,"  she 
remarked.  "  We  are  too  busy  for  the  like 
of  you." 


La  Fire  of  Cursed  Memory.  1 75 

If  we  could  make  an  entrance,  change 
our  clothes,  and  order  a  bottle  of  wine,  I  felt 
sure  we  could  put  things  right ;  so  said  I, 
"If  we  cannot  sleep,  we  may  at  least  dine," 
■ — and  was  for  depositing  my  bag. 

What  a  terrible  convulsion  of  nature  was 
that  which  followed  in  the  landlady's  face ! 
She  made  a  run  at  us  and  stamped  her  foot. 

"Out  with  you,  —  out  of  the  door!'  she 
screeched.  "  Sortez !  sortez  !  sortez  par  la 
portc  /" 

I  do  not  know  how  it  happened,  but  next 
moment  we  were  out  in  the  rain  and  dark- 
ness, and  I  was  cursing  before  the  carriage 
entry  like  a  disappointed  mendicant.  Where 
were  the  boating  men  of  Belgium  f  where 
the  judge  and  his  good  wines?  and  where 
the  graces  of  Origny  ?  Black,  black  was  the 
night  after  the  firelit  kitchen,  but  what  was 
that    to  the   blackness  in    our  heart  ?     This 


^ 


176  An  Inland  Voyage. 

was  not  the  first  time  that  I  have  been  re- 
fused a  lodging.  Often  and  often  have  I 
planned  what  I 'should  do  if  such  a  misad- 
venture happened  to  me  again.  And  noth- 
ing is  easier  to  plan.  But  to  put  in  execu- 
tion, with  the  heart  boiling  at  the  indignity  ? 
Try  it ;  try  it  only  once,  and  tell  me  what 
you  did.     / 

It  is  all  very  fine  to  talk  about  tramps 
and  morality.  Six  hours  of  police  surveil- 
lance (such  as  I  have  had)  or  one  brutal 
rejection  from  an  inn  door  change  your 
views  upon  the  subject  like  a  course  of  lec- 
tures. As  long  as  you  keep  in  the  upper 
regions,  with  all  the  world  bowing  to  you  as 
you  go,  social  arrangements  have  a  very 
handsome  air ;  but  once  get  under  the 
wheels  and  you  wish  society  were  at  the 
devil  I  will  give  most  respectable  men  a 
fortnight  of  such  a  life,  and  then  I  will  offer 


La  Fere  of  Cursed  Memory.  177 

them    twopence   for   what   remains    of  their 
morality. 

For  my  part,  when  I  was  turned  out  of 
the  Stag,  or  the  Hind,  or  whatever  it  was, 
I  would  have  set  the  temple  of  Diana  on 
fire  if  it  had  been  handy.  There  was  no 
crime  complete  enough  to  express  my  disap- 
proval of  human  institutions.  As  for  the 
Cigarette,  I  never  knew  a  man  so  altered. 
"  We  have  been  taken  for  pedlars  again," 
said  he.  "  Good  God,  what  it  must  be  to  be 
a  pedlar  in  reality ! "  He  particularized  a 
complaint  for  every  joint  in  the  landlady's 
body.  Timon  was  a  philanthropist  alongside 
of  him.  And  then,  when  he  was  at  the  top 
of  his  maledictory  bent,  he  would  suddenly 
break  away  and  begin  whimperingly  to  com- 
miserate the  poor.  "I  hope  to  God"  he 
saidj  —  and  I  trust  the  prayer  was  answered, 
— "  that  I  shall  never  be  uncivil  to  a  pedlar." 
12 


178  An  Inland   Voyage. 

Was  this  the  imperturbable  Cigarette  ?  This, 
this  was  he.  Oh,  change  beyond  report, 
thought,  or  belief ! 

Meantime  the  heaven  wept  upon  our  heads ; 
and  the  windows  grew  brighter  as  the  night 
increased  in  darkness.  We  trudged  in  and 
out  of  La  Fere  streets  ;  we  saw  shops,  and 
private  houses  where  people  were  copiously 
dining  ;  we  saw  stables  where  carters'  nags 
had  plenty  of  fodder  and  clean  straw  ;  we 
saw  no  end  of  reservists,  who  were  very 
sorry  for  themselves  this  wet  night,  I  doubt 
not,  and  yearned  for  their  country  homes  ; 
but  had  they  not  each  man  his  place  in  La 
Fere  barracks  ?     And  we,  what  had  we  ? 

There  seemed  to  be  no  other  inn  in  the 
whole  town.  People  gave  us  directions, 
which  we  followed  as  best  we  could,  gener- 
ally with  the  effect  of  bringing  us  out  again 
upon  the  scene   of  our  disgraces    We  were 


La  Fere  of  Cursed  Memory.  1 79 

very  sad  people  indeed,  by  the  time  we  had 
gone  all  over  La  Fere ;  and  the  Cigarette 
had  already  made  up  his  mind  to  lie  under 
a  poplar  and  sup  off  a  loaf  of  bread.  But 
right  at  the  other  end,  the  house  next  the 
town-gate  was  full  of  light  and  bustle. 
"  Bazin,  aubergiste,  loge  a  pied]'  was  the  sign. 
"A  la  Croix  de  Malted  There  were  we  re- 
ceived. 

The    room    was    full   of   noisy    reservists 
drinking  and  smoking  ;  and  were  very   glad 
indeed  when  the  drums  and  bugles  began  to' 
go  about  the  streets,  and  one  and   all  had  to 
snatch  shakoes  and  be  off  for  the  barracks. 

Bazin  was  a  tall  man,  running  to  fat ;  soft- 
spoken,  with  a  delicate,  gentle  face.  We 
asked  him  to  share  our  wine;  but  he  excused 
himself,  having  pledged  reservists  all  day 
long.  This  was  a  very  different  type  of  the 
workman-innkeeper  from  the  bawling,  dispu- 


180  An  Inland  Voyage. 

tatious  fellow  at  Origny.  He  also  loved 
Paris,  where  he  had  worked  as  a  decorative 
painter  in  his  youth.  There  were  such  op- 
portunities for  self-instruction  there,  he  said. 
And  if  any  one  has  read  Zolas  description 
of  the  workman's  marriage  party  visiting  the 
Louvre  they  would  do  well  to  have  heard 
Bazin  by  way  of  antidote.  He  had  delighted 
in  the  museums  in  his  youth.  "  One  sees  there 
little  miracles  of  work,"  he  said  ;  "  that  is 
what  makes  a  good  workman ;  it  kindles  a 
spark."  We  asked  him  how  he  managed  in 
La  Fere.  "  I  am  married,"  he  said,  "  and  I 
have  my  pretty  children.  But  frankly,  it  is 
no  life  at  all.  From  morning  to  night  I 
pledge  a  pack  of  good-enough  fellows  who 
know  nothing." 

It  faired  as  the  night  went  on,  and  the 
moon  came  out  of  the  clouds.  We  sat  in 
front  of  the  door,  talking  softly  with   Bazin. 


La  Fere  of  Cursed  Memory.  1 8 1 

At  the  guard-house  opposite  the  guard  was 
being  forever  turned  out,  as  trains  of  field 
artillery  kept  clanking  in  out  of  the  night 
or  patrols  of  horsemen  trotted  by  in  their 
cloaks.  Madame  Basin  came  out  after  a 
while ;  she  was  tired  with  her  day's  work, 
I  suppose  ;  and  she  nestled  up  to  her  hus- 
band and  laid  her  head  upon  his  breast.  He 
had  his  arm  about  her  and  kept  gently  pat- 
ting her  on  the  shoulder.  I  think  Bazin 
was  right,  and  he  was  really  married.  Of 
how  few  people  can  the  same  be  said ! 

Little  did  the  Bazins  know  how  much 
they  served  us.  We  were  charged  for  can- 
dles, for  food  and  drink,  and  for  the  beds  we 
slept  in.  But  there  was  nothing  in  the  bill 
for  the  husband's  pleasant  talk ;  nor  for  the 
pretty  spectacle  of  their  married  life.  And 
there  was  yet  another  item  uncharged.  For 
these  people's   politeness    really   set   us  un 


1 82  An  Inland  Voyage. 

again  in  our  own  esteem.  We  had  a  thirst 
for  consideration ;  the  sense  of  insult  was 
still  hot  in  our  spirits ;  and  civil  usage 
seemed  to  restore  us  to  our  position  in  the 
world. 

How  little  we  pay  our  way  in  life  !  Al- 
though we  have  our  purses  continually  in 
our  hand,  the  better  part  of  service  goes 
still  unrewarded^/  But  I  like  to  fancy  that  a 
grateful  spirit  gives  as  good  as  it  gets.  Per- 
haps the  Basins  knew  how  much  I  liked 
them  ?  perhaps  they,  also,  were  healed  of 
some  slights  by  the  thanks  that  I  gave  them 
in  my  manner? 


DOWN   THE   OISE. 

THROUGH    THE    GOLDEN    VALLEY. 

Below  La  Fere  the  river  runs  through  a 
piece  of  open  pastoral  country ;  green,  opu- 
lent, loved  by  breeders  ;  called  the  Golden 
Valley.  In  wide  sweeps,  and  with  a  swift 
and  equable  gallop,  the  ceaseless  stream  of 
water  visits  and  makes  green  the  fields. 
Kine,  and  horses,  and  little  humorous  don- 
keys browse  together  in  the  meadows,  and 
come  down  in  troops  to  the  river-side  to 
drink.  They  make  a  strange  feature  in  the 
landscape ;  above  all  when  startled,  and  you 
see  them  galloping  to  and  fro,  with  their 
incongruous  forms  and  faces.  It  gives  a 
feeling  as  of  great,  unfenced  pampas,  and 
.the  herds  of  wandering  nations.     There  were 


184  An  Inland   Voyage. 

hills  in  the  distance  upon  either  hand ;  and 
on  one  side,  the  river  sometimes  bordered 
on  the  wooded  spurs  of  Coney  and  St.  Gobain. 
The  artillery  were  practising  at  La  Fere ; 
and  soon  the  cannon  of  heaven  joined  in  that 
loud  play.  Two  continents  of  cloud  met 
and  exchanged  salvos  overhead  ;  while  all 
round  the  horizon  we  could  see  sunshine  and 
clear  air  upon  the  hills.  What  with  the 
guns  and  the  thunder,  the  herds  were  all 
frighted  in  the  Golden  Valley.  We  could 
see  them  tossing  their  heads,  and  running 
to  and  fro  in  timorous  indecision ;  and 
when  they  had  made  up  their  minds,  and 
the  donkey  followed  the  horse,  and  the  cow 
was  after  the  donkey,  we  could  hear  their 
hoofs  thundering  abroad  over  the  meadows. 
It  had  a  martial  sound,  like  cavalry  charges. 
And  altogether,  as  far  as  the  ears  are  con- 
cerned, we  had  a  very  rousing  battle  piece 
performed  for  our  amusement. 


Down  the  Oise.  185 

At  last,  the  guns  and  the  thunder  dropped 
off ;  the  sun  shone  on  the  wet  meadows  ; 
the  air  was  scented  with  the  breath  of  re- 
joicing trees  and  grass  ;  and  the  river  kept 
unweariedly  carrying  us  on  at  its  best  pace.  .. 
There  was  a  manufacturing  district  about 
Cliaiiny  ;  and  after  that  the  banks  grew  so 
high  that  they  hid  the  adjacent  country,  and 
we  could  see  nothing  but  clay  sides,  and  one 
willow  after  another.  Only  here  and  there 
we  passed  by  a  village  or  a  ferry,  and  some 
wondering  child  upon  the  bank  would  stare 
after  us  until  we  turned  the  corner.  I  dare- 
say we  continued  to  paddle  in  that  child's 
dreams  for  many  a  night  after. 

Sun  and  shower  alternated  like  day  and 
night,  making  the  hours  longer  by  their  vari- 
ety. When  the  showers  were  heavy  I  could 
feel  each  drop  striking  through  my  jersey  to 
my  warm    skin ;  and     the   accumulation   of 


1 86  An  Inland   Voyage. 

small  shocks  put  me  nearly  beside  myself. 
I  decided  I  should  buy  a  mackintosh  at 
Noyon.  It  is  nothing  to  get  wet  ;  but  the 
misery  of  these  individual  pricks  of  cold  all 
over  my  body  at  the  same  instant  of  time 
made  me  flail  the  water  with  my  paddle 
like  a  madman.  The  Cigarette  was  greatly 
amused  by  these  ebullitions.  It  gave  him 
something  else  to  look  at  besides  clay  banks 
and  willows 

All  the  time  the  river  stole  away  like  a 
thief  in  straight  places,  or  swung  round  cor- 
ners with  an  eddy  ;  the  willows  nodded  and 
were  undermined  all  day  long ;  the  clay 
banks  tumbled  in  ;  the  Oise,  which  had  been 
so  many  centuries  making  the  Golden  Valley, 
seemed  to  have  changed  its  fancy  and  be 
bent  upon  undoing  its  performance.  What 
a  number  of  things  a  river  does  by  simply 
following  Gravity  in  the  innocence  of  its 
heart ! 


NOYON   CATHEDRAL. 

Noyon  stands  about  a  mile  from  the 
river,  in  a  little  plain  surrounded  by  wooded 
hills,  and  entirely  covers  an  eminence  with 
its  tile  roofs,  surmounted  by  a  long,  straight- 
backed  cathedral  with  two  stiff  towers.  As 
we  got  into  the  town,  the  tile  roofs  seemed  to 
tumble  up-hill  one  upon  another,  in  the 
oddest  disorder  ;  but  for  all  their  scrambling 
they  did  not  attain  above  the  knees  of  the 
cathedral,  which  stood,  upright  and  solemn, 
over  all.  As  the  streets  drew  near  to  this 
presiding  genius,  through  the  market-place 
under  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  they  grew  emptier 
and  more  composed.  Blank  walls  and  shut- 
tered windows  were  turned  to  the  great  edi- 
fice, and  grass  grew  on  the  white   causeway. 


1 88  An  Inland  Voyage. 

"  Put  off  thy  shoes  from  off   thy  feet,  for  the 
place  whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground." 
The  Hotel  du  Nord,  nevertheless,  lights    its 
secular    tapers   within    a   stone-cast    of   the 
church ;    and   we   had   the    superb  east  end 
before  our  eyes  all  morning  from  the  window 
of  our  bedroom.     I  have   seldom    looked   on 
the  east  end  of  a  church  with  more  complete 
sympathy.      As  it  flanges  out   in   three  wide 
terraces,   and    settles    down  broadly  on   the 
earth,  it  looks  like  the  poop  of  some  great 
old    battle-ship.      Hollow-backed    buttresses 
carry   vases,  which  figure  for  the  stern   lan- 
terns.    There  is  a  roll  in  the  ground,  and  the 
towers   just  appear   above  the   pitch   of   the 
roof,  as  though  the  good  ship  were  bowing 
lazily  over  an   Atlantic  swell.     At    any   mo- 
ment it  might  be  a  hundred  feet   away  from 
you,  climbing  the  next    billow.     At   amy  mo- 
ment  a  window    might    open,  and    some  old 


Noyon  CatJicdral.  189 

admiral  thrust  forth  a  cocked  hat  and  pro- 
ceed to  take  an  observation.  The  old  admirals 
sail  the  sea  no  longer ;  the  old  ships  of 
battle  are  all  broken  up,  and  live  only  in 
pictures  ;  but  this,  that  was  a  church  before 
ever  they  were  thought  upon,  is  still  a 
church,  and  makes  as  brave  an  appearance  by 
the  Oise.  The  cathedral  and  the  river  are 
probably  the  two  oldest  things  for  miles 
around  ;  and  certainly  they  have  both  a  grand 
old  age. 

The  Sacristan  took  us  to  the  top  of  one  of 
the  towers,  and  showed  us  the  five  bells 
hanging  in  their  loft.  From  above  the  town 
was  a  tessellated  pavement  of  roofs  and  gar- 
dens ;  the  old  line  of  rampart  was  plainly 
traceable ;  and  the  Sacristan  pointed  out  to 
us,  far  across  the  plain,  in  a  bit  of  gleaming 
sky  between  two  clouds,  the  towers  of  Chd* 
tean  Coney. 


190  An  Inland  Voyage. 

1  rind  I  never  weary  of  great  churches. 
It  is  my  favorite  kind  of  mountain  scenery. 
Mankind  was  never  so  happily  inspired  as 
when  it  made  a  cathedral :  a  thing  as  single 
and  specious  as  a  statue  to  the  first  glance, 
and  yet,  on  examination,  as  lively  and  inter- 
esting as  a  forest  in  detail.  The  height  ot 
spires  cannot  be  taken  by  trigonometry , 
they  measure  absurdly  short,  but  how  tall 
they  are  to  the  admiring  eye !  And  where 
we  have  so  many  elegant  proportions,  grow- 
ing one  out  of  the  other,  and  all  together 
into  one,  it  seems  as  if  proportion  tran- 
scended itself  and  became  something  differ- 
ent and  more  imposing.  I  could  never 
fathom  how  a  man  dares  to  lift  up  his  voice 
to  preach  in  a  cathedral.  What  is  he  to  say 
that  will  not  be  an  anti-climax  ?  For  though 
I  have  heard  a  considerable  variety  of  ser 
mons,  I  never  yet   heard   one    that  was   sc 


Noyon  Cathedral.  191 

expressive  as  a  cathedral.  'T  is  the  best 
preacher  itself,  and  preaches  day  and  night  ; 
not  only  telling  you  of  man's  art  and  aspira- 
tions in  the  past,  but  convicting  your  own 
soul  of  ardent  sympathies  ;  or  rather,  like  all 
good  preachers,  it  sets  you  preaching  to  / 
yourself,  —  and  every  man  is  his  own  doctor 
of  divinity  in  the  last  resort. 

As  I  sat  outside  of  the  hotel  in  the  course 
of  the  afternoon,  the  sweet,  groaning  thunder 
of  the  organ  floated  out  of  the  church  like  a 
summons.  I  was  not  averse,  liking  the  the- 
atre so  well,  to  sit  out  an  act  or  two  of  the 
play,  but  I  could  never  rightly  make  out  the 
nature  of  the  service  I  beheld.  Four  or  five 
priests  and  as  many  choristers  were  singing 
Miserere  before  the  high  altar  when  I  went 
in.  There  was  no  congregation  but  a  few 
old  women  on  chairs  and  old  men  kneeling 
on  the  pavement.     After  a  while  a  long  train 


192  An  Inland   Voyage, 

of  young  girls,  walking  two  and  two,  each 
with  a  lighted  taper  in  her  hand,  and  all 
dressed  in  black  with  a  white  veil,  came  from 
behind  the  altar  and  began  to  descend  the 
nave  ;  the  four  first  carrying  a  Virgin  and 
child  upon  a  table.  The  priests  and  choris- 
ters arose  from  their  knees  and  followed 
after,  singing  "Ave  Mary"  as  they  went. 
In  this  order  they  made  the  circuit  of  the 
cathedral,  passing  twice  before  me  where  I 
leaned  again6t  a  pillar.  The  priest  who 
seemed  of  moit  consequence  was  a  strange, 
down-looking  old  man.  He  kept  mumbling 
prayers  with  his  lips  ;  but,  as  he  looked  upon 
me  darkling,  it  did  not  seem  as  if  prayer 
were  uppermost  in  his  heart.  Two  others, 
who  bore  the  burden  of  the  chant,  were 
stout,  brutal,  military-looking  men  of  forty, 
with  bold,  over-fed  eyes;  they  sang  with 
some    lustiness,    and     trolled     forth    "Ave 


Noyon  Cathedtal,  193 

Md*y"  like  a  garrison  catch.  The  little  girls 
were  timid  and  grave.  As  they  footed 
slowly  up  the  aisle,  each  one  took  a  mo- 
ment's glance  at  the  Englishman;  and  the 
big  n\.  <\  who  played  marshal  fairly  stared 
him  ou\  of  countenance.  As  for  the  choris- 
ters, fro>.i  first  to  last  they  misbehaved  as 
only  boys  can  misbehave,  and  cruelly  marred 
the  performance  with  their  antics. 

I  understood  a  great  deal  of  the  spirit  of 
what  went  on.  Indeed,  it  would  be  difficult 
not  to  understand  the  Miserere,  which  I  take 
to  be  the  composition  of  an  atheist.  If  it 
ever  be  a  good  thing  to  take  such  despond- 
ency to  heart,  the  Miserere  is  the  right  music 
and  a  cathedral  a  fit  scene.  So  far  I  am  at 
one  with  the  Catholics, — an  odd  name  for 
them,  after  all  ?  But  why,  in  God's  name, 
these  holiday  choristers  ?  why  these  priests 
who  steal  wandering  looks  about  the  congre* 

13 


194  An  Inland  Voyage. 

gation  while  they  feign  to  be  at  prayer  ?  why 
this  fat  nun,  who  rudely  arranges  her  pro- 
cession and  shakes  delinquent  virgins  by  the 
elbow  ?  why  this  spitting,  and  snuffing,  and 
forgetting  of  keys,  and  the  thousand  and  one 
little  misadventures  that  disturb  a  frame  of 
mind,  laboriously  edified  with  chants  and 
organings  ?  In  any  play-house  reverend 
fathers  may  see  what  can  be  done  with  a 
little  art,  and  how,  to  move  high  sentiments, 
it  is  necessary  to  drill  the  supernumeraries 
and  have  every  stool  in  its  proper  place. 

One  other  circumstance  distressed  me.  I 
could  bear  a  Miserere  myself,  having  had  a 
good  deal  of  open-air  exercise  of  late ;  but  I 
wished  the  old  people  somewhere  else.  It 
was  neither  the  right  sort  of  music  nor  the 
right  sort  of  divinity  for  men  and  women 
who  have  come  through  most  accidents  by 
this   time,  and   probably  have  an  opinion  ol 


Noyon  Cathedral.  195 

their  own  upon  the  tragic  element  in  life. 
A  person  up  in  years  can  generally  do  his 
own  Miserere  for  himself ;  although  I  notice 
that  such  an  one  often  prefers  yubilate  Deo 
for  his  ordinary  singing.  On  the  whole,  the 
most  religious  exercise  for  the  aged  is  prob- 
ably to  recall  their  own  experience  ;  so  many 
friends  dead,  so  many  hopes  disappointed,  so 
many  slips  and  stumbles,  and  withal  so  many 
bright  days  and  smiling  providences  ;  there 
is  surely  the  matter  of  a  very  eloquent  ser- 
mon in  all  this. 

On  the  whole,  I  was  greatly  solemnized. 
In  the  little  pictorial  map  of  our  whole  In- 
land Voyage,  which  my  fancy  still  preserves, 
and  sometimes  unrolls  for  the  amusement  of 
odd  moments,  Noyon  cathedral  figures  on  a 
most  preposterous  scale,  and  must  be  nearly 
as  large  as  a  department.  I  can  still  see  the 
faces  of  the  priests  as  if  they  were  at   my 


196  An  Inland  Voyage. 

elbow,  and  hear  Ave  Maria,  ora  pro  nobis 
sounding  through  the  church.  All  Noyon  is 
blotted  out  for  me  by  these  superior  memo- 
ries ;  and  I  do  not  care  to  say  more  about 
the  place.  It  was  but  a  stack  of  brown  roofs 
at  the  best,  where  I  believe  people  live  very 
reputably  in  a  quiet  way  ;  but  the  shadow  of 
the  church  falls  upon  it  when  the  sun  is  low, 
and  the  five  bells  are  heard  in  all  quarters, 
telling  that  the  organ  has  begun.  If  ever  I 
join  the  church  of  Rome  I  shall  stipulate  to 
be  Bishop  of  Noyon  on  the  Oise. 


DOWN  THE  OISE. 

TO    COMPIEGNE. 

The  most  patient  people  grow  weary  at 
last  with  being  continually  wetted  with  rain  ; 
except,  of  course,  in  the  Scotch  Highlands, 
where  there  are  not  enough  fine  intervals  to 
point  the  difference.  That  was  like  to  be 
our  case  the  day  we  left  Noyon.  I  remem- 
ber nothing  of  the  voyage ;  it  was  nothing 
but  clay  banks,  and  willows,  and  rain  ;  in- 
cessant, pitiless,  beating  rain ;  until  we 
stopped  to  lunch  at  a  little  inn  at  Pimprez, 
where  the  canal  ran  very  near  the  river. 
We  were  so  sadly  drenched  that  the  land- 
lady lit  a  few  sticks  in  the  chimney  for 
our  comfort ;  there  we  sat  in  a  steam  of 
vapor    lamenting  our  concerns.      The   bus- 


198  An  Inland  Voyage. 

band  donned  a  game-bag  and  strode  out  to 
shoot  :  the  wife  sat  in  a  far  corner  watchine 
us.  I  think  we  were  worth  looking  at.  We 
grumbled  over  the  misfortune  of  La  Fere ; 
we  forecast  other  La  Feres  in  the  future, 
—  although  things  went  better  with  the 
Cigarette  for  spokesman ;  he  had  more 
aplomb  altogether  than  I ;  and  a  dull,  positive 
way  of  approaching  a  landlady  that  carried 
off  the  india-rubber  bags.  Talking  of  La 
Fere  put  us  talking  of  the  reservists. 

"  Reservery,"  said  he,  "seems  a  pretty 
mean  way  to  spend  one's  autumn  holiday." 

"  About  as  mean,"  returned  I,  dejectedly, 


"  as  canoeing." 


"These  gentlemen  travel  for  their  pleas- 
ure ?  "  asked  the  landlady,  with  unconscious 
irony 

It  was  too  much.  The  scales  fell  from  our 
eyes  Another  wet  day,  it  was  determined, 
and  we  put  the  boats  into  the  train. 


Down  the  Oise.  199 

The  weather  took  the  hint.  That  was  our 
last  wetting.  The  afternoon  faired  up ; 
grand  clouds  still  voyaged  in  the  sky,  but 
now  singly,  and  with  a  depth  of  blue  around 
their  path  ;  and  a  sunset,  in  the  daintiest  rose 
and  gold,  inaugurated  a  thick  night  of  stars 
and  a  month  of  unbroken  weather.  At  the 
same  time,  the  river  began  to  give  us  a  bet- 
ter outlook  into  the  country.  The  banks 
were  not  so  high,  the  willows  disappeared 
from  along  the  margin,  and  pleasant  hills 
stood  all  along  its  course  and  marked  their 
profile  on  the  sky. 

In  a  little  while,  the  canal  coming  to  its 
last  lock,  began  to  discharge  its  water  houses 
on  the  Oise ;  so  that  we  had  no  lack  of  com- 
pany to  fear.  Here  were  all  our  own  friends  ; 
the  Deo  Gratias  Conde  and  the  Four  Sous  of 
Aymon  journeyed  cheerily  down  the  stream 
along    with    us ;    we    exchanged    waterside 


200  An  Inland  Voyage. 

pleasantries  with  the  steersman  perched 
among  the  lumber,  or  the  driver  hoarse  with 
bawling  to  his  horses ;  and  the  children 
came  and  looked  over  the  side  as  we  paddled 
by.  We  had  never  known  all  this  while  how 
much  we  missed  them  ;  but  it  gave  us  a  fillip 
to  see  the  smoke  from  their  chimneys. 

A  little  below  this  junction  we  made 
another  meeting  of  yet  more  account.  For 
there  we  were  joined  by  the  Aisne,  already 
a  far-travelled  river  and  fresh  out  of  Cham- 
pagne. Here  ended  the  adolescence  of  the 
Oise ;  this  was  his  marriage  day ;  thence- 
forward he  had  a  stately,  brimming  march, 
conscious  of  his  own  dignity  and  sundry 
dams.  He  became  a  tranquil  feature  in  the 
scene.  The  trees  and  towns  saw  themselves 
in  him,  as  in  a  mirror.  He  carried  the 
canoes  lightly  on  his  broad  breast ;  there 
was  no  need  to  work  hard  against  an  eddy, 


Down  the  Oise.  201 

bat  idleness  became  the  order  of  the  day, 
and  mere  straightforward  dipping  of  the 
paddle,  now  on  this  side,  now  on  that,  with- 
out intelligence  or  effort.  Truly  we  were 
coming  into  halcyon  weather  upon  all  ac- 
counts, and  were  floated  towards  the  sea  like 
gentlemen. 

We  made  Compiegne  as  the  sun  was  going 
down :  a  fine  profile  of  a  town  above  the 
river.  Over  the  bridge  a  regiment  was 
parading  to  the  drum.  People  loitered  on 
the  quay,  some  fishing,  some  looking  idly 
at  the  stream.  And  as  the  two  boats  shot 
in  along  the  water,  we  could  see  them  point- 
ing them  out  and  speaking  one  to  another. 
We  landed  at  a  floating  lavatory,  where  the 
washerwomen  were  still  beating  the  clothes. 


AT   COMPlfeGNE. 

We  put  up  at  a  big,  bustling  hotel  in  Com- 
piegne,  where  nobody  observed  our  presence. 

Reservery  and  general  militarismus  (as  the 
Germans  call  it)  was  rampant.  A  camp  of 
conical  white  tents  without  the  town  looked 
like  a  leaf  out  of  a  picture  Bible ;  sword-belts 
decorated  the  walls  of  the  cafes,  and  the 
streets  kept  sounding  all  day  long  with  mili- 
tary music.  It  was  not  possible  to  be  an 
Englislwian  and  avoid  a  feeling  of  elation ; 
for  the  men  who  followed  the  drums  were 
small  and  walked  shabbily.  Each  man  in- 
clined at  his  own  angle,  and  jolted  to  his 
own  convenience  as  he  went.  There  was 
nothing  of  the  superb  gait  with  which  a 
J    regiment  of  tall   Highlanders  moves  behind 


At  Compiegne.  203 

its  music,  solemn  and  inevitable,  like  a 
natural  phenomenon.  Who,  that  has  seen 
it,  can  forget  the  drum-major  pacing  in  front, 
the  drummers'  tiger  skins,  the  pipers'  swing- 
ing plaids,  the  strange,  elastic  rhythm  of  the 
whole  regiment  footing  it  in  time,  and  the 
bang  of  the  drum  when  the  brasses  cease, 
and  the  shrill  pipes  take  up  the  martial  story 
in  their   place  ? 

V  A  girl  at  school  in  France  began  to  de- 
scribe one  of  our  regiments  on  parade  to 
her  French  schoolmates,  and  as  she  went 
on,  she  told  me  the  recollection  grew  so 
vivid,  she  became  so  proud  to  be  the  country- 
woman of  such  soldiers,  and  so  sorry  to  be 
in  another  country,  that  her  voice  failed  her 
and  she  burst  into  tears.  I  have  never  for- 
gotten that  girl,  and  I  think  she  very  nearly 
deserves  a  statue.  To  call  her  a  young  lady, 
with  all  its  niminy  associations,  would  be  to 


204  An  Inland  Voyage. 

offer  her  an  insult.  She  may  rest  assured 
of  one  thing,  although  she  never  should 
marry  a  heroic  general,  never  see  any  great 
or  immediate  result  of  her  life,  she  will  not 
have  lived  in  vain  for  her  native  land. 

But  though  French  soldiers  show  to  ill- 
advantage  on  parade,  on  the  march  they 
are  gay,  alert,  and  willing,  like  a  troop  of 
fox-hunters.  I  remember  once  seeing  a 
company  pass  through  the  forest  of  Fon- 
tainebleau,  on  the  Chailly  road,  between  the 
Bos  Brian  and  the  Reine  Blanche.  One 
fellow  walked  a  little  before  the  rest,  and 
sang  a  loud,  audacious  marching  song.  The 
rest  bestirred  their  feet,  and  even  swung 
their  muskets  in  time.  A  young  officer  on 
horseback  had  hard  ado  to  keep  his  counte- 
nance at  the  words.  You  never  saw  anything 
so  cheerful  and  spontaneous  as  their  gait ; 
school-boys  do  not  look  more  eagerly  at  hare 


At  Cornptegne.  205 

and  hounds  ;  and  you  would  have  thought 
it  impossible  to  tire  such  willing  marchers. 
My  great  delight  in  Compiegne  was  the 
town  hall.  I  doted  upon  the  town  hall.  It  is  a 
monument  of  Gothic  insecurity,  all  turreted, 
and  gargoyled,  and  slashed,  and  bedizened 
with  half  a  score  of  architectural  fancies. 
Some  of  the  niches  are  gilt  and  painted  ; 
and  in  a  great  square  panel  in  the  centre, 
in  black  relief  on  a  gilt  ground,  Louis  XII 
rides  upon  a  pacing  horse,  with  hand  on  hip, 
and  head  thrown  back.  There  is  royal  arro- 
gance in  every  line  of  him ;  the  stirrupped 
foot  projects  insolently  from  the  frame  ;  the 
eye  is  hard  and  proud  ;  the  very  horse  seems 
to  be  treading  with  gratification  over  pros- 
trate serfs,  and  to  have  the  breath  of  the 
trumpet  in  his  nostrils.  So  rides  forever, 
on  the  front  of  the  town  hall,  the  good  king 
Louis  XII,  the  father  of  his  people. 

■ 


206  An  Inland  Voyage. 

Over  the  king's  head,  in  the  tall  centre 
turret,  appears  the  dial  of  a  clock ;  and  high 
above  that,  three  little  mechanical  figures, 
each  one  with  a  hammer  in  his  hand,  whose 
business  it  is  to  chime  out  the  hours,  and 
halves,  and  quarters  for  the  burgesses  of  Com- 
piegne.  The  centre  figure  has  a  gilt  breast- 
plate ;  the  two  others  wear  gilt  trunk-hose ; 
and  they  all  three  have  elegant,  flapping  hats 
like  cavaliers.  As  the  quarter  approaches 
they  turn  their  heads  and  look  knowingly 
one  to  the  other  ;  and  then,  kling  go  the 
three  hammers  on  three  little  bells  below. 
The  hour  follows,  deep  and  sonorous,  from 
the  interior  of  the  tower;  and  the  gilded 
gentlemen  rest  from  their  labors  with  con- 
tentment. 

I  had  a  great  deal  of  healthy  pleasure 
from  their  manoeuvres,  and  took  good  care 
to   miss   as  few   performances   as   possible ; 


At  Compiegne.  207 

and  I  found  that  even  the  Cigarette,  while 
he  pretended  to  despise  my  enthusiasm, 
was  more  or  less  a  devotee  himself.  There 
is  something  highly  absurd  in  the  exposition 
of  such  toys  to  the  outrages  of  winter  on  a 
housetop.  They  would  be  more  in  keeping 
in  a  glass  case  before  a  Niirnberg  clock. 
Above  all,  at  night,  when  the  children  are 
abed,  and  even  grown  people  are  snoring 
under  quilts,  does  it  not  seem  impertinent 
to  leave  these  gingerbread  figures  winking 
and  tinkling  to  the  stars  and  the  rolling 
moon  ?  The  gargoyles  may  fitly  enough 
twist  their  ape-like  heads ;  fitly  enough 
may  the  potentate  bestride  his  charger, 
like  a  centurion  in  an  old  German  print  of 
the  Via  Dolorosa ;  but  the  toys  should  be 
put  away  in  a  box  among  some  cotton,  until 
the  sun  rises,  and  the  children  are  abroad 
again  to  be  amused. 


208  An  Inland  Voyage. 


■/ 


In  Compiegne  post-office  a  great  packet  of 
letters  awaited  us ;  and  the  authorities  were, 
for  this  occasion  only,  so  polite  as  to  hand 
them  over  upon  application. 

In  some  way,  our  journey  may  be  said  to 
end  with  this  letter-bag  at  Compiegne.  The 
spell  was  broken.  W~  had  partly  come  home 
from  that  moment. 

No  one  should  have  any  correspondence 
on  a  journey;  it  is  bad  enough  to  have  to 
write  ;  but  the  receipt  of  letters  is  the 
death  of  all  holiday  feeling. 

"  Out  of  my  country  and  myself  I  go."  I 
wish  to  take  a  dive  among  new  conditions 
for  a  while,  as  into  another  element.  I  have 
nothing  to  do  with  my  friends  or  my  affec- 
tions for  the  time  ;  when  I  came  away,  I 
left  my  heart  at  home  in  a  desk,  or  sent  it 
forward  with  portmanteau  to  await  me  at  my 
destination.      After  my  journey  is    over,    I 


At  Compiegne.  209 

shall  not  fail  to  read  your  admirable  letters 
with  the  attention  they  deserve.  But  I  have 
paid  all  this  money,  look  you,  and  paddled 
all  these  strokes,  for  no  other  purpose  than 
to  be  abroad  ;  and  yet  you  keep  me  at  home  » 
with  your  perpetual  communications,  Yoi 
tug  the  string,  and  I  feel  that  I  am  a  teth- 
ered bird.  You  pursue  me  all  over  Europe 
with  the  little  vexations  that  I  came  away  tc 
avoid.  There  is  no  discharge  in  the  war  of 
life,  I  am  well  aware  ;  but  shall  there  not  be 
so  much  as  a  week's  furlough  V 

We  were  up  by  six,  the"  day  we  were  to 
leave.  They  had  taken  so  little  note  of  us 
that  I  hardly  thought  they  would  have  con- 
descended on  a  bill.  But  thev  did,  with  some 
smart  particulars,  too  ;  and  we  paid  in  a  civ- 
ilized manner  to  an  uninterested  clerk,  and 
went  out  of  that  hotel,  with  the  india-rubber 
bags,  unremarked.  No  one  cared  to  know 
14 


210  An  Inland  Voyage. 

about  us.  It  is  not  possible  fo  rise  before 
a  village ;  but  Compirgne  was  so  grown  a 
town  that  it  took  its  ease  in  the  morning ; 
and  we  were  up  and  away  while  it  was  still 
in  dressing-gown  and  slippers.  The  streets 
were  left  to  people  washing  door-steps ;  no- 
body was  in  full  dress  but  the  cavaliers  upon 
the  town  hall ;  they  were  all  washed  with 
dew,  spruce  in  their  gilding,  and  full  of  in- 
telligence and  a  sense  of  professional  re- 
sponsibility. Kling  went  they  on  the  bells 
for  the  half  past  six,  as  we  went  by.  I  took 
it  kind  of  them  to  make  me  this  parting 
compliment ;  they  never  were  in  better  form, 
not  even  at  noon  upon  a  Sunday. 

There  was  no  one  to  see  us  off  but  the 
early  washerwomen,  —  early  and  late,  —  who 
were  already  bearing  the  linen  in  their  float- 
ing lavatory  on  the  river.  They  were  very 
merry  and  matutinal  in  their  ways ;  plunged 


At  Compiegne.  211 

their  arms  boldly  in,  and  seemed  not  to  feel 
the  shock.  It  would  be  dispiriting  to  me, 
this  early  beginning  and  first  cold  dabble,  ol 
a  most  dispiriting  day's  work.  But  I  believe 
they  would  have  been  as  unwilling  to  change 
days  with  us  as  we  could  be  to  change  with 
them.  They  crowded  to  the  door  to  watch 
us  paddle  away  into  the  thin  sunny  mists 
upon  the  river;  and  shouted  heartily  after  us 
till  we  were  through  the  bridge. 


CHANGED   TIMES. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  those  mists 
never  rose  from  off  our  journey  ;  and  from 
that  time  forth  they  lie  very  densely  in  my 
note-book.  As  long  as  the  Oise  was  a  small, 
rural  river  it  took  us  near  by  people's  doors, 
and  we  could  hold  a  conversation  with  natives 
in  the  riparian  fields.  But  now  that  it  had 
grown  so  wide,  the  life  along  shore  passed  us 
by  at  a  distance.  It  was  the  same  difference 
as  between  a  great  public  highway  and  a  coun- 
try bypath  that  wanders  in  and  out  of  cottage 
gardens.  We  now  lay  in  towns,  where  no- 
body troubled  us  with  questions ;  we  had 
floated  into  civilized  life,  where  people  pass 
without  salutaion.     In  sparsely  inhabited  pla- 


Changed  Times.  213 

ces  we  make  all  we  can  of  each  encounter ; 
but  when  it  comes  to  a  city,  we  keep  to  our- 
selves, and  never  speak  unless  we  have  trodden 
on  a  man's  toes.     In  these  waters  we  were  no 
longer   strange   birds,  and  nobody  supposed 
we  had  travelled  farther  than  from   the  last 
town.       I    remember,   when   we    came    into 
L Isle  Adam,  for  instance,  how  we  met  dozens 
of  pleasure-boats  outing  it  for  the  afternoon, 
and  there  was  nothing  to  distinguish  the  true 
voyager   from  the  amateur,  except,  perhaps, 
the  filthy  condition  of  my  sail.      The  com- 
pany in  one  boat  actually  thought  they  recog- 
nized me  for  a  neighbor.      Was  there   ever 
anything  more  wounding  ?      All  the  romance 
had  come  down  to  that.     Now,  on  the  upper 
Oise,  where  nothing  sailed,  as  a  general  thing, 
but  fish,  a  pair  of  canoeists  could  not  be  thus 
vulgarly   explained    away ;    we  were  strange 
and  picturesque  intruders ;   and   out  of  peo« 


214  An  Inland  Voyage. 

pie's  wonder  sprang  a  sort  of  light  and  pass- 
ing intimacy  all  along  our  route.  There  is 
nothing  but  tit  for  tat  in  this  world,  though 
sometimes  it  be  a  little  difficult  to  trace:  for 
the  scores  are  older  than  we  ourselves,  and 
there  has  never  yet  been  a  settling-day  since 
things  were.  You  get  entertainment  pretty 
much  in  proportion  as  you  give.  As  long  as 
we  were  a  sort  of  odd  wanderers,  to  be  stared 
at  and  followed  like  a  quack  doctor  or  a  cara- 
van, we  had  no  want  of  amusement  in  return ; 
but  as  soon  as  we  sank  into  commonplace 
ourselves,  all  whom  we  met  were  similarly 
disenchanted.  And  here  is  one  reason  of  a 
dozen  why  the  world  is  dull  to  dull  persons. 

In  our  earlier  adventures  there  was  gener- 
ally something  to  do,  and  that  quickened  us. 
Even  the  showers  of  rain  had  a  revivifying 
effect,  and  shook  up  the  brain  from  torpor. 
But  now,  when  the  river  no  longer  ran  in  a 


Changed  Times.  215 

proper  sense,  only  glided  seaward  with  an 
even,  outright,  but  imperceptible  speed,  and 
when  the  sky  smiled  upon  us  day  after  day 
without  variety,  we  began  to  slip  into  that 
golden  doze  of  the  mind  which  follows  upon 
much  exercise  in  the  open  air.  I  have  stupe- 
fied myself  in  this  way  more  than  once :  in- 
deed, I  dearly  love  the  feeling;  but  I  never 
had  it  to  the  same  degree  as  when  paddling 
down  the  Oise.  It  was  the  apotheosis  of 
stupidity. 

1 

We  ceased  reading  entirely.  Sometimes, 
when  I  found  a  new  paper,  I  took  a  particu- 
lar pleasure  in  reading  a  single  number  of 
the  current  novel ;  but  I  never  could  bear 
more  than  three  instalments ;  and  even  the 
second  was  a  disappointment.  As  soon  as 
the  tale  became  in  any  way  perspicuous,  it 
lost  all  merit  in  my  eyes ;  only  a  single 
scene,  or,  as  is  the  way  with  these  fenilletons, 


216  A?i  Inland  Voyage, 

half  a  scene,  without  antecedent  or  conse- 
quence, like  a  piece  of  a  dream,  had  the 
knack  of  fixing  my  interest.  The  less  I  saw 
of  the  novel  the  better  I  liked  it :  a  preg- 
nant reflection.  But  for  the  most  part,  as  I 
said,  we  neither  of  us  read  anything  in  the 
world,  and  employed  the  very  little  while  we 
were  awake  between  bed  and  dinner  in  por- 
ing upon  maps.  I  have  always  been  fond 
of  maps,  and  can  voyage  in  an  atlas  with  the 
greatest  enjoyment.  The  names  of  places 
are  singularly  inviting ;  the  contour  of  coasts 
and  rivers  is  enthralling  to  the  eye;  and  to 
hit  in  a  map  upon  some  place  you  have  heard 
of  before  makes  history  a  new  possession. 
But  we  thumbed  our  charts,  on  those  even- 
ings, with  the  blankest  unconcern.  We 
cared  not  a  fraction  for  this  place  or  that. 
We  stared  at  the  sheet  as  children  listen  to 
their  rattle,  and  read  the  names  of  towns  cr 


Changed  Times.  217 

villages  to  forget  them  again  at  once.  We 
had  no  romance  in  the  matter ;  there  was 
nobody  so  fancy-free.  If  you  had  taken  the 
maps  away  while  we  were  studying  them 
most  intently,  it  is  a  fair  bet  whether  we 
might  not  have  continued  to  study  the  table 
with  the  same  delight. 

/^About  one  thing  we  were  mightily  taken 
up,  and  that  was  eating.  I  think  I  made  a 
god  of  my  belly.  I  remember  dwelling  in 
imagination  upon  this  or  that  dish  till  my 
mouth  watered  ;  and  long  before  we  got  in 
for  the  night  my  appetite  was  a  clamant, 
instant  annoyance.  Sometimes  we  paddled 
alongside  for  a  while  and  whetted  each  other 
with  gastronomical  fancies  as  we  went. 
Cake  and  sherry,  a  homely  refection,  but 
not  within  reach  upon  the  Oise,  trotted 
through  my  head  for  many  a  mile  ;  and  once, 
as  we  were  approaching  Verberie,  the  Ciga* 


218  An  Inland  Voyage. 

reite  brought  my  heart  into  my  mouth  by  the 
suggestion  of  oyster  patties  and  Sauterne. 

I  suppose  none  of  us  recognize  the  great 
part  that  is  played  in  life  by  eating  and 
drinking.  The  appetite  is  so  imperious  that 
we  can  stomach  the  least  interesting  viands, 
and  pass  off  a  dinner  hour  thankfully  enough 
on  bread  and  water  ;  just  as  there  are  men 
who  must  read  something,  if  it  were  only 
Bradshaws  Guide.  But  there  is  a  romance 
about  the  matter,  after  all.  Probably  the 
table  has  more  devotees  than  love ;  and  I 
am  sure  that  food  is  much  more  generally 
entertaining  than  scenery.  Do  you  give  in, 
as  Walt  Whitman  would  say,  that  you  are 
any  the  less  immortal  for  that  ?  The  true 
materialism  is  to  be  ashamed  of  what  we  are. 
To  detect  the  flavor  of  an  olive  is  no  less  a 
piece  of  human  perfection  than  to  find 
beauty  in  the  colors  of  the  sunset. 

v 


Changed  Times.  219 

Canoeing  was  easy  work.  To  dip  the 
paddle  at  the  proper  inclination,  now  right, 
now  left ;  to  keep  the  head  down  stream  ; 
to  empty  the  little  pool  that  gathered  in  the 
lap  of  the  apron;  to  screw  up  the  eyes 
against  the  glittering  sparkles  of  sun  upon 
the  water ;  or  now  and  again  to  pass  below 
the  whistling  tow-rope  of  the  Deo  Gratias  of 
Co  ride',  or  Four  Sons  of  Aymon,  —  there  was 
not  much  art  in  that ;  certainly  silly  muscles 
managed  it  between  sleep  and  waking ;  and 
meanwhile  the  brain  had  a  whole  holiday, 
and  went  to  sleep.  We  took  in  at  a  glance 
the  larger  features  of  the  scene,  and  beheld, 
with  half  an  eye,  bloused  fishers  and  dab- 
bling washerwomen  on  the  bank.  Now  and 
again  we  might  be  half  wakened  by  some 
church  spire,  by  a  leaping  fish,  or  by  a  trail 
of  river  grass  that  clung  about  the  paddle 
and  had  to  be  plucked  off  and  thrown  away. 


220  An  Inland  Voyage. 

But  these  luminous  intervals  were  only  par- 
tially luminous.  A  little  more  of  us  was 
called  into  action,  but  never  the  whole. 
The  central  bureau  of  nerves,  what  in  some 
moods  we  call  Ourselves,  enjoyed  its  holiday 
without  disturbance,  like  a  Government 
Office.  The  great  wheels  of  intelligence 
turned  idly  in  the  head,  like  fly-wheels, 
grinding  no  grist.  I  have  gone  on  for  half 
an  hour  at  a  time,  counting  my  strokes  and 
forgetting  the  hundreds.  I  flatter  myself 
the  beasts  that  perish  could  not  underbid 
that,  as  a  low  form  of  consciousness.  And 
What  a  pleasure  it  was !  What  a  hearty, 
tolerant  temper  did  it  bring  about!  There 
is  nothing  captious  about  a  man  who  has 
attained  to  this,  the  one  possible  apotheosis  in 
life,  the  Apotheosis  of  Stupidity ;  and  he  begins 
to  feel  dignified  and  longevous  like  a  tree. 
There  was  one  odd  piece  of  practical  meta- 


Changed  Times.  221 

physics  which  accompanied  what  I  may  call 
the  depth,  if  I  must  not  call  it  the  intensity, 
of  my  abstraction.  What  philosophers  call 
me  and  not  me,  ego  and  non  ego,  preoccupied 
me  whether  I  would  or  no.  There  was  less 
me  and  more  not  me  than  I  was  accustomed 
to  expect.  I  looked  on  upon  somebody  else, 
who  managed  the  paddling  ;  I  was  aware  of 
somebody  else's  feet  against  the  stretcher ; 
my  own  body  seemed  to  have  no  more  inti- 
mate relation  to  me  than  the  canoe,  or  the 
river,  or  the  river  banks.  Nor  this  alone : 
something  inside  my  mind,  a  part  of  my 
brain,  a  province  of  my  proper  being,  had 
thrown  off  allegiance  and  set  up  for  itself,  or 
pei haps  for  the  somebody  else  who  did  the 
paddling.  I  had  dwindled  into  quite  a  little 
thing  in  a  corner  of  myself.  I  was  isolated 
in  my  own  skull.  Thoughts  presented 
themselves    unbidden ;    they   were   not    my 


222  An  Inland  Voyage. 

thoughts,  they  were  plainly  some  one  else's  ; 
and  I  considered  them  like  a  part  of  the 
Ja»dscape.  I  take  it,  in  short,  that  I  was 
about  as  near  Nirvana  as  would  be  conve- 
nient in  practical  life ;  and,  ;f  this  be  so, 
I  make  the  Buddhists  my  sincere  compli- 
ments ;  i't  is  an  agreeable  state,  n  it  very  con- 
sistent with  mental  brilliancy,  rot  exactly 
profitable  in  a  money  point  of  view  but  very 
calm,  golden,  and  incurious,  and  -"me  that 
sets  a  man  superior  to  alarms.  It  may  be 
best  figured  by  supposing  youradf  to  get 
dead  drunk,  and  yet  keep  sober  to  enjoy  it. 
I  have  a  notion  that  open-air  laborers  must 
spend  a  large  portion  of  their  days  in  this 
ecstatic  stupor,  which 'explains  th^ir  h;gh 
composure  and  endufance.  A  pity  to  go  .o 
the  expense  of  laudanum  when  here  \  a 
better  paradise  for  nothing  ! 

This_ frame  of  mind  wa$  the  great  erploit 


Changed  Times.  223 


of  our  voyage,  take  it  all  in  all.  It  was  the 
farthest  piece  of  travel  accomplished.  In" 
deed,  it  lies  so  far  from  beaten  paths  of 
language  that  I  despair  of  getting  the  reader 
into  sympathy  with  the  smiling,  compla- 
cent idiocy  of  my  condition  ;  when  ideas 
came  and  went  like  motes  in  a  sunbeam ; 
when  trees  and  church  spires  along  the  bank 
surged  up  from  time  to-  time  into  my  notice, 
like  solid  objects  through  a  rolling  cloud- 
land  ;  when  the  rhythmical  swish  of.  boat 
and  paddle  in  the  water  became  a  cradle- 
song  to  lull  my  thoughts  asleep ;  when  a 
piece  of  mud  on  the  deck  was  sometimes  an 
intolerable  eyesore,  and  sometimes  quite  a 
companion  for  me,  and -the  object  of-  pleased 
consideration ;  and  all  the  time,  with  the 
river  running  and  the  shores  changing  upon 
either  hand,  I  kept  counting  my  strokes  and 
forgetting  the  hundreds,  tfye  happiest  animal 
in  France. 


DOWN  THE  OISE. 

CHURCH  INTERIORS. 

We  made  our  first  stage  below  Compiegne 
to  Pont  Sainte  Maxence.  I  was  abroad  a 
little  after  six  the  next  morning.  The  air  was 
biting  and  smelt  of  frost.  In  an  open  place 
a  score  of  women  wrangled  together  over  the 
day's  market ;  and  the  noise  of  their  negotia- 
tion sounded  thin  and  querulous,  like  that 
of  sparrows  on  a  winter's  morning.  The 
rare  passengers  blew  into  their  hands,  and 
shuffled  in  their  wooden  shoes  to  set  the 
blood  agog.  The  streets  were  full  of  icy 
shadow,  although  the  chimneys  were  smok- 
ing overhead  in  golden  sunshine.  If  you 
wake  early  enough  at  this  season  of  the  year, 


Down  the  Oise.  225 

you  may  get  up  in   December  to   break  your 
fast  in   Tzine. 

I  found  my  way  to  the  church,  for  there  is 
always  something  to  see  about  a  church, 
whether  living  worshippers  or  dead  men's 
tombs ;  you  find  there  the  deadliest  earnest, 
and  the  hollowest  deceit ;  and  even  where  it 
is  not  a  piece  of  history,  it  will  be  certain 
to  leak  out  some  contemporary  gossip.  It 
was  scarcely  so  cold  in  the  church  as  it  was 
without,  but  it  looked  colder.  The  white 
nave  was  positively  arctic  to  the  eye;  and 
the  tawdriness  of  a  continental  altar  looked 
more  forlorn  than  usual  in  the  solitude  and 
the  bleak  air.  Two  priests  sat  in  the  chancel 
reading  and  waiting  penitents  ;  and  out  in 
the  nave  one  very  old  woman  was  engaged 
in  her  devotions.  It  was  a  wonder  how  she 
was  able  to  pass  her  beads  when  healthy 
young  people  were  breathing  in  their  palms 


226  An  Inland  Voyage. 

and  slapping  their  chest ;  but  though  this 
concerned  me,  I  was  yet  more  dispirited  by 
the  nature  of  her  exercises.  She  went  from 
chair  to  chair,  from  altar  to  altar,  circum- 
navigating the  church.  To  each  shrine  she 
dedicated  an  equal  number  of  beads  and  an 
equal  length  of  time.  Like  a  prudent  capi- 
talist with  a  somewhat  cynical  view  of  the 
commercial  prospect,  she  desired  to  place  her 
supplications  in  a  great  variety  of  heavenly 
securities.  She  would  risk  nothing  on  the 
credit  of  any  single  intercessor.  Out  of  the 
whole  company  of  saints  and  angels,  not  one 
but  was  to  suppose  himself  her  champion 
elect  against  the  Great  Assizes  !  I  could  only 
think  of  it  as  a  dull,  transparent  jugglery, 
based  upon  unconscious  unbelief. 

She  was  as  dead  an  old  woman  as  ever  I 
saw  ;  no  more  than  bone  and  parchment,  cu- 
riously put  together.     Her  eyes,  with  which 


Down  the  Oise,  227 

she  interrogated  mine,  were  vacant  of  sense. 
It  depends  on  what  you  call  seeing,  whether 
you  might  not  call  her  blind.  Perhaps  she 
had  known  love :  perhaps  borne  children, 
suckled  them,  and  given  them  pet  names. 
But  now  that  was  all  gone  by,  and  had  left 
her  neither  happier  nor  wiser  ;  and  the  best 
she  could  do  with  her  morningb  was  to  come 
up  here  into  the  cold  church  and  juggle  for  a 
slice  of  heaven.  It  was  not  without  a  gulp 
that  I  escaped  into  the  streets  and  the  keen 
morning  air.  Morning  ?  why,  how  tired  of  it 
she  would  be  before  night !  and  if  she  did  not 
sleep,  how  then  ?  It  is  fortunate  that  not 
many  of  us  are  brought  up  publicly  to  justify 
our  lives  at  the  bar  of  threescore  years  and 
ten ;  fortunate  that  such  a  number  are 
knocked  opportunely  on  the  head  in  what 
they  call  the  flower  of  their  years,  and  go 
away   to   suffer  for  their  follies   in   private 


228  Ait  Inland  Voyage. 

somewhere  else.  Otherwise,  between  sick 
children  and  discontented  old  folk,  we  might 
be  put  out  of  all  conceit  of  life. 

I  had  need  of  all  my  cerebral  hygiene  dur- 
ing that  day's  paddle :  the  old  devotee  stuck 
in  my  throat  sorely.  But  I  was  soon  in  the 
seventh  heaven  of  stupidity ;  and  knew  noth- 
ing but  that  somebody  was  paddling  a  canoe, 
while  I  was  counting  his  strokes  and  forgetting 
the  hundreds.  I  used  sometimes  to  be  afraid 
I  should  remember  the  hundreds ;  which 
would  have  made  a  toil  of  a  pleasure  ;  but 
the  terror  was  chimerical,  they  went  out  of 
my  mind  by  enchantment,  and  I  knew  no 
more  than  the  man  in  the  moon  about  my 
only  occupation. 

At  Creil,  where  we  stopped  to  lunch,  we 
left  the  canoes  in  another  floating  lavatory, 
which,  as  it  was  high  noon,  was  packed  with 
washerwomen,    red-handed   and  loud-voiced; 


Down  the  Oise.  229 

and  they  and  their  broad  jokes  are  about  all  1 
remember  of  the  place.     I  could  look  up  my 
history  books,  if  you  were  very  anxious,  and 
tell  you  a  date  or  two  ;  for  it  figured  rather 
largely  in  the  English  wars.     But  I  prefer  to 
mention   a  girls'  boarding-school,  which  had 
an   interest  for  us  because   it   was   a   girls' 
boarding-school,  and  because  we  imagined  we 
had  rather    an  interest   for   it.        At   least, 
there  were  the  girls  about  the  garden  ;  and 
here  were  we  on  the  river ;  and  there  was  more 
than    one  handkerchief  waved  as    we   went 
by.     It  caused  quite  a  stir  in  my  heart ;  and 
yet   how  we  should  have   wearied   and    de- 
spised each  other,  these  girls  and  I,  if  we  had 
been    introduced   at  a  croquet   party !     But 
this  is  a  fashion  I  love :  to  kiss  the  hand  or 
wave  a  handkerchief  to  people  I  shall  never 
see  again,  to  play  with  possibility,  and  knock 
in  a  peg  for  fancy  to  hang  upon.     It  gives  the 


230  Aji  Inland  Voyage. 

traveller  a  jog,  reminds  him  that  he  is  not  a 
traveller  everywhere,  and  that  his  journey  is 
no  more  than  a  siesta  by  the  way  on  the  real 
march  of  life. 

The  church  at  Creil  was  a  nondescript 
place  in  the  inside,  splashed  with  gaudy 
lights  from  the  windows,  and  picked  out  with 
medallions  of  the  Dolorous  Way.  But  there 
was  one  oddity,  in  the  way  of  an  ex  voto, 
which  pleased  me  hugely  :  a  faithful  model  of 
a  canal  boat,  swung  from  the  vault,  with  a 
written  aspiration  that  God  should  conduct 
the  Saint  Nicholas  of  Creil  to  a  good  haven. 
The  thing  was  neatly  executed,  and  would 
have  made  the  delight  of  a  party  of  boys  on 
the  water-side.  But  what  tickled  me  was  the 
gravity  of  the  peril  to  be  conjured.  You 
might  hang  up  the  model  of  a  sea-going  ship, 
and  welcome  :  one  that  is  to  plough  a  furrow 
round  the  woild,  and  visit  the  tropic  or  the 


Down  the  Oise.  231 

frosty  poles,  runs  dangers  that  are  well  worth 
a  candle  and  a  mass.  But  the  Saint  Nicho- 
las of  Creily  which  was  to  be  tugged  for  some 
^ten  years  by  patient  draught  horses,  in  a 
weedy  canal,  with  the  poplars  chattering  over- 
head, and  the  skipper  whistling  at  the  tiller  ; 
which  was  to  do  all  its  errands  in  green, 
inland  places,  and  never  got  out  of  sight  of  a 
village  belfry  in  all  its  cruising ;  why,  you 
would  have  thought  if  anything  could  be  done 
without  the  intervention  of  Providence,  it 
would  be  that !  But  perhaps  the  skipper  was 
a  humorist :  or  perhaps  a  prophet,  reminding 
people  of  the  seriousness  of  life  by  this  pre- 
posterous token. 

At  Creily  as  at  Noyon,  Saint  Joseph  seemed 
a  favorite  saint  on  the  score  of  punctuality.  . 
Day  and  hour  can  be  specified ;  and  grateful 
people  do  not  fail  to  specify  them  on  a  votive 
tablet,  when  prayers  have  been,  punctually  and 


232  An  Inland  Voyage. 

neatly  answered.  Whenever  time  is  a  consid* 
eration,  Saint  Joseph  is  the  proper  interme- 
diary. I  took  a  sort  of  pleasure  in  observing 
the  vogue  he  had  in  France,  for  the  good  man 
plays  a  very  small  part  in  my  religion  at 
home.  Yet  I  could  not  help  fearing  that, 
where  the  saint  is  so  much  commended  for 
exactitude,  he  will  be  expected  to  be  very 
grateful  for  his  tablet. 

This  is  foolishness  to  us  Protestants  ;  and 
not  of  great  importance  any  way.  Whether 
people's  gratitude  for  the  good  gifts  that 
come  to  them  be  wisely  conceived  or  duti- 
fully expressed  is  a  secondary  matter,  after 
all,  so  long  as  they  feel  gratitude.  The  true 
ignorance  is  when  a  man  does  not  know  that 
he  has  received  a  good  gift,  or  begins  to 
imagine  that  he  has  got  it  for  himself.  The 
self-made  man  is  the  funniest  windbag  after 
all !     There  is  a  marked  difference  between 


Down  the  Oise.  233 

decreeing  light  in  chaos,  and  lighting  the 
gas  in  a  metropolitan  back-parlor  with  a  box 
of  patent  matches;  and,  do  what  we  will, 
there  is  always  something  made  to  our  hand, 
if  it  were  only  our  ringers. 

But  there  was  something  worse  than  fool- 
ishness placarded  in  Creil  Church.  The  As- 
sociation of  the  Living  Rosary  (of  which  I  had 
never  previously  heard)  is  responsible  foi 
that.  This  association  was  founded,  accord- 
ing to  the  printed  advertisement,  by  a  brief  of 
Pope  Gregory  Sixteenth,  on  the  17th  of  Jan- 
uary, 1832  :  according  to  a  colored  bas-relief, 
it  seems  to  have  been  founded,  some  time  or 
other,  by  the  Virgin  giving  one  rosary  to 
Saint  Dominic,  and  the  Infant  Saviour  giving 
another  to  Saint  Catherine  of  Sienna.  Pope 
Gregory  is  not  so  imposing,  but  he  is  nearer 
hand.  I  could  not  distinctly  make  out 
whether  the   association   was  entirely  devo 


234  An  In/and   Voyage. 

tional,  or  had  an  eye  to  good  works  ;  at  least 
it  is  highly  organized  :  the  names  of  fourteen 
matrons  and  misses  were  filled  in  for  each 
week  of  the  month  as  associates,  with  one 
other,  generally  a  married  woman,  at  the  top 
for  Zelatrice,  the  choragus  of  the  band.  In- 
dulgences, plenary  and  partial,  follow  on  the 
performance  of  the  duties  of  the  association. 
"  The  partial  indulgences  are  attached  to  the 
recitation  of  the  rosary."  On  "  the  recitation 
of  the  required  dizaine"  a  partial  indulgence 
promptly  follows.  When  people  serve  the 
kingdom  of  Heaven  with  a  pass-book  in  their 
hands,  I  should  always  be  afraid  lest  they 
should  carry  the  same  commercial  spirit  into 
their  dealings  with  their  fellow-men,  which- 
would  make  a  sad  and  sordid  business  of  this 
life. 

There  is  one  more  article,  however,  of  hap- 
pier import.     "  All  these  indulgences,"  it  ar> 


Down  the  Oise.  235 

peared,  "are  applicable  to  souls  in  purgatory." 
For  God's  sake,  ye  ladies  of  Creil,  apply  them 
all  to  the  souls  in  purgatory  without  delay! 
Burns  would  take  no  hire  for  his  last  songs, 
preferring  to  serve  his  country  out  of  unmixed 
love.  Suppose  you  were  to  imitate  the  ex- 
ciseman, mesdames,  and  even  if  the  souls  in 
purgatory  were  not  greatly  bettered,  some 
souls  in  Creil  upon  the  Oise  would  find  them- 
selves none  the  worse  either  here  or  here- 
after. 

I  cannot  help  wondering,  as  I  transcribe 
these  notes,  whether  a  Protestant  born  and 
bred  is  in  a  fit  state  to  understand  these 
signs,  and  do  them  what  justice  they  de- 
serve ;  and  I  cannot  help  answering  that  he 
is  not.  They  cannot  look  so  merely  ugly  and 
mean  to  the  faithful  as  they  do  to  me.  I  see 
that  as  clearly  as  a  proposition  in  Euclid. 
For   these  believers  are   neither    weak    nor 


236  An  Inla?id  Voyage. 

wicked.  They  can  put  up  their  tablet  com' 
mending  Saint  Joseph  for  his  despatch  as  if 
he  were  still  a  village  carpenter ;  they  can 
" recite  the  required  dizaine"  and  metaphori- 
cally pocket  the  indulgences  as  if  they  had 
done  a  job  for  heaven  ;  and  then  they  can  go 
out  and  look  down  unabashed  upon  this  won- 
derful river  flowing  by,  and  up  without  con- 
fusion at  the  pin-point  stars,  which  are 
themselves  great  worlds  full  of  flowing  rivers 
greater  than  the  Oise.  I  see  it  as  plainly,  I  say, 
as  a  proposition  in  Euclid,  that  my  Protestant 
mind  has  missed  the  point,  and  that  there 
goes  with  these  deformities  some  higher  and 
more  religious  spirit  than  I  dream. 

I  wonder  if  other  people  would  make  the 
same  allowances  for  me  ?  Like  the  ladies  of 
Creil,  having  recited  my  rosary  cf  toleration, 
I  look  for  my  indulgence  on  the  spot. 


VPRECY  AND  THE  MARIONETTES. 
We  made  Precy  about  sundown.  The 
plain  is  rich  with  tufts  of  poplar.  In  a  wide, 
luminous  curve  the  Oise  lay  under  the 
hillside.  A  faint  mist  began  to  rise  and 
confound  the  different  distances  together. 
There  was  not  a  sound  audible  but  that  of 
the  sheep-bells  in  some  meadows  by  the 
river,  and  the  creaking  of  a  cart  down  the 
long  road  that  descends  the  hill.  The  villas 
in  their  gardens,  the  shops  along  the  street, 
all  seemed  to  have  been  deserted  the  day 
before  ;  and  I  felt  inclined  to  walk  discreetly 
as  one  feels  in  a  silent  forest.  All  of  a  sud- 
den we  came  round  a  corner,  and  there,  in  a 
little  green  round  the  church,  was  a  bevy  of 
girls  in  Parisian   costumes  playing   croquet. 


rarivi 


238  An  Inland  Voyage. 

Their  laughter  and  the  hollow  sound  of  ball 
and  mallet  made  a  cheery  stir  in  the  neigh- 
borhood ;  and  the  look  of  these  slim  figures, 
all  corseted  and  ribboned,  produced  an  an- 
swerable disturbance  in  our  hearts.  We 
were  within  sniff  of  Paris,  it  seemed.  And 
here  were  females  of  our  own  species  playing 
croquet,  just  as  if  Pricy  had  been  a  place  in 
real  life  instead  of  a  stage  in  the  fairy-land 
of  travel.  For,  to  be  frank,  the  peasant- 
woman  is  scarcely  to  be  counted  as  a  woman 
at  all,  and  after  having  passed  by  such  a 
succession  of  people  in  petticoats  digging, 
and  hoeing,  and  making  dinner,  this  com- 
pany of  coquettes  under  arms  made  quite  a 
surprising  feature  in  the  landscape,  and  con- 
vinced us  at  once  of  being  fallible  males. 

The  inn  at  Prtcy  is  the  worst  inn  in 
France.  Not  even  in  Scotland  have  I  found 
worse  fare.     It  was  kept  by  a  brother  and 


Pricy  and  the  Marionettes.  239 

sister,  neither  of  whom  was  out  of  their 
teens.  The  sister,  so  to  speak,  prepared  a 
meal  for  us  ;  and  the  brother,  who  had  been 
tippling,  came  in  and  brought  with  him  a 
tipsy  butcher,  to  entertain  us  as  we  ate. 
We  found  pieces  of  loo-warm  pork  among 
the  salad,  and  pieces  of  unknown  yielding 
substance  in  the  ragotit.  The  butcher  enter- 
tained us  with  pictures  of  Parisian  life,  with 
which  he  professed  himself  well  acquainted ; 
the  brother  sitting  the  while  on  the  edge  of 
the  billiard  table,  toppling  precariously,  and 
sucking  the  stump  of  a  cigar.  In  the  midst 
of  these  diversions  bang  went  a  drum  past 
the  house,  and  a  hoarse  voice  began  issuing 
a  proclamation.  It  was  a  man  with  mario- 
nettes announcing  a  performance  for  that 
evening. 

He  had  set  up  his  caravan  and  lighted  his 
candles  on  another  part  of  the  girls'  croquet 


240  An  Inland  Voyage. 

green,  under  one  of  those  open  sheds  which 
are  so  common  in  France  to  shelter  markets  ; 
and  he  and  his  wife,  by  the  time  we  strolled 
up  there,  were  trying  to  keep  order  with  the 
audience.  ^ 

It  was  the  most  absurd  contention.  The 
show-people  had  set  out  a  certain  number  of 
benches  ;  and  all  who  sat  upon  them  were  to 
pay  a  couple  of  sons  for  the  accommodation. 
They  were  always  quite  full  —  a  bumper 
house — as  long  as  nothing  was  going  for- 
ward ;  but  let  the  show-woman  appear  with 
an  eye  to  a  collection,  and  at  the  first  rat- 
tle of  the  tambourine  the  audience  slipped 
off  the  seats  and  stood  round  on  the  out* 
side,  with  their  hands  in  their  pockets.  It 
certainly  would  have  tried  an  angel's  temper. 
The  showman  roared  from  the  proscenium  ; 
he  had  been  all  over  France,  and  nowhere, 
nowhere,  "not  even  on  the  borders  of  Ger~ 


Pricy  and  the  Marionettes,  241 

many"  had  he  met  with  such  misconduct. 
Such  thieves,  and  rogues,  and  rascals  as  he 
called  them  !  And  now  and  again  the  wife 
issued  on  another  round,  and  added  her  shrill 
quota  to  the  tirade.  I  remarked  here,  as 
elsewhere,  how  far  more  copious  is  the 
female  mind  in  the  material  of  insult.  The 
audience  laughed  in  high  good-humor  over 
the  man's  declamations  ;  but  they  bridled  and 
cried  aloud  under  the  woman's  pungent  sal- 
lies. She  picked  out  the  sore  points.  She 
had  the  honor  of  the  village  at  her  mercy. 
Voices  answered  her  angrily  out  of  the  crowd, 
and  received  a  smarting  retort  for  their 
trouble.  A  couple  of  old  ladies  beside  me,  ' 
who  had  duly  paid  for  their  seats,  waxed  very 
red  and  indignant,  and  discoursed  to  each 
other  audibly  about  the  impudence  of  these 
mountebanks ;  but  as  soon  as  the  show- 
woman  caught  a  whisper  of  this  she  was 
16 


242  An  Inland  Voyage. 

down  upon  them  with  a  swoop ;  if  mesdamea 
could  persuade  their  neighbors  to  act  with 
common  honesty,  the  mountebanks,  she  as- 
sured them,  would  be  polite  enough ;  mes- 
dames  had  probably  had  their  bowl  of  soup, 
and,  perhaps,  a  glass  of  wine  that  evening; 
the  mountebanks,  also,  had  a  taste  for  soup, 
and  did  not  choose  to  have  their  little  earn-  • 
ings  stolen  from  them  before  their  eyes. 
Once,  things  came  as  far  as  a  brief  personal 
encounter  between  the  showman  and  some 
lads,  in  which  the  former  went  down  as  read- 
ily as  one  of  his  own  marionettes  to  a  peal  of 
jeering  laughter. 

I  was  a  good  deal  astonished  at  this  scene, 
because  I  am  pretty  well  acquainted  with  the 
ways  of  French  strollers,  more  or  less  artis- 
tic ;  and  have  always  found  them  singularly 
pleasing.  Any  stroller  must  be  dear  to  the 
right-thinking  heart ;  if  it  were  only  as  a  living 


Prfcy  and  the  Marionettes,  243 

protest  against  offices  and  the  mercantile 
spirit,  and  as  something  to  remind  us  that 
life  is  not  by  necessity  the  kind  of  thing  we 
generally  make  it.  Even  a  German  band, 
if  you  see  it  leaving  town  in  the  early  morn- 
ing for  a  campaign  in  country  places,  among 
trees  and  meadows,  has  a  romantic  flavor 
for  the  imagination.  There  is  nobody  under 
thirty  so  dead  but  his  heart  will  stir  a 
little  at  sight  of  a  gypsies'  camp.  "  We 
are  not  cotton-spinners  all  "  ;  or,  at  least,  not 
all  through.  There  is  some  life  in  humanity 
yet;  and  youth  will  now  and  again  find  a 
brave  word  to  say  in  dispraise  of  riches,,  and 
throw  up  a  situation  to  go  strolling  with  a 
knapsack. 

J^n  Englishman  has  always  special  facili- 
ties for  intercourse  with  French  gymnasts  ; 
for  England  is  the  natural  home  of  gymnasts. 
This  or  that  fellow,  in  his  tights  and    span 


J 


244  An  Inland  Voyage. 

gles,  is  sure  to  know  a  word  or  two  of  Eng- 
lish, to  have  drunk  English  aff-n-aff,  and,  per- 
haps, performed  in  an  English  music  hall. 
He  is  a  countryman  of  mine  by  profession. 
He  leaps  like  the  Belgian  boating-men  to 
the  notion  that  I  must  be  an  athlete  myself. 

But  the  gymnast  is  not  my  favorite  ;  he 
has  little  or  no  tincture  of  the  artist  in  his 
composition  ;  his  soul  is  small  and  pedes- 
trian, for  the  most  part,  since  his  profession 
makes  no  call  upon  it,  and  does  not  accustom 
him  to  high  ideas.  But  if  a  man  is  only  so 
much  of  an  actor  that  he  can  stumble  through 
a  farce,  he  is  made  free  of  a  new  order  of 
thoughts.  He  has  something  else  to  think 
about  beside  the  money-box.  He  has  a  pride 
of  his  own,  and,  what  is  of  far  more  impor- 
tance, he  has  an  aim  before  him  that  he  can 
never  quite  attain.  He  has  gone  upon  a 
pilgrimage  that  will   last  him    his  life-long, 


PrScy  and  the  Marionettes.  245 

because  there  is  no  end  to  it  short  of  per« 
fection.  He  will  better  himself  a  little  day 
by  day ;  or,  even  if  he  has  given  up  the  at- 
tempt, he  will  always  remember  that  once 
upon  a  time  he  had  conceived  this  high  ideal, 
that  once  upon  a  time  he  fell  in  love  with  a 
star.  "  'T  is  better  to  have  loved  and  lost." 
Although  the  moon  should  have  nothing  to 
say  to  Endymion,  although  he  should  settle 
down  with  Audrey  and  feed  pigs,  do  you  not 
think  he  would  move  with  a  better  grace  and 
cherish  higher  thoughts  to  the  end  ?  The 
louts  he  meets  at  church  never  had  a  fancy 
above  Audrey  s  snood ;  but  there  is  a  reminis- 
cence in  Endymiori s  heart  that,  like  a  spice, 
keeps  it  fresh  and  haughty. 

To  be  even  one  of  the  outskirters  of  art 
leaves  a  fine  stamp  on  a  man's  countenance. 
I  remember  once  dining  with  a  party  in  the 
inn    at    Chateau    Landon,      Most    of    thm 


246  An  Inland  Voyage. 

were  unmistakable  bagmen  ;  others  well-to- 
do  peasantry;  but  there  was  one  young 
fellow  in  a  blouse,  whose  face  stood  out  from 
among  the  rest  surprisingly.  It  looked  more 
finished ;  more  of  the  spirit  looked  out 
through  it  ;  it  had  a  living,  expressive  air, 
and  you  could  see  that  his  eyes  took  things 
in.  My  companion  and  I  wondered  greatly 
who  and  what  he  could  be.  It  was  fair  time 
in  Chdteau  Landon,  and  when  we  went  along 
to  the  booths  we  had  our  question  answered; 
for  there  was  our  friend  busily  fiddling  for 
the  peasants  to  caper  to.  He  was  a  wander- 
ing violinist. 

A  troop  of  strollers  once  came  to  the  inn 
where  I  was  staying,  in  the  department  of 
Seine  et  Marne.  There  were  a  father  and 
mother;  two  daughters,  brazen,  blowsy  hus- 
sies, who  sang  and  acted,  without  an  idea  of 
how  to  set  about  either ;    and  a  dark  young 


Pricy  and  the  Marionettes.  247 

man,  like  a  tutor,  a  recalcitrant  house- 
painter,  who  sang  and  acted  not  amiss.  The 
mother  was  the  genius  of  the  party,  so  far  as 
genius  can  be  spoken  of  with  regard  to  such 
a  pack  of  incompetent  humbugs ;  and  her 
husband  could  not  find  words  to  express 
his  admiration  for  her  comic  countryman. 
"  You  should  see  my  old  woman,"  said  he, 
and  nodded  his  beery  countenance.  One 
night  they  performed  in  the  stable-yard  with 
flaring  lamps  :  a  wretched  exhibition,  coldly 
looked  upon  by  a  village  audience.  Next 
night,  as  soon  as  the  lamps  were  lighted, 
there  came  a  plump  of  rain,  and  they  had  to 
sweep  away  their  baggage  as  fast  as  possible, 
and  make  off  to  the  barn,  where  they  har- 
bored, cold,  wet,  and  supperless.  In  the 
morning  a  dear  friend  of  mine,  who  has  as 
warm  a  heart  for  strollers  as  I  have  myself, 
made  a  little  collection,  and  sent  it  by  my 


248  An  Inland  Voyage, 

hands  to  comfort  them  for  their  disappoint, 
ment.  I  gave  it  to  the  father;  he  thanked 
me  cordially,  and  we  drank  a  cup  together  in 
the  kitchen,  talking  of  roads,  and  audiences, 
and  hard  times. 

When  I  was  going,  up  got  my  old  stroller, 
and  off  with  his  hat.  "  I  am  afraid,"  said  he, 
"  that  Monsieur  will  think  me  altogether  a 
beggar ;  but  I  have  another  demand  to  make 
upon  him."  I  began  tp  hate  him  on  the  spot. 
"  We  play  again  to-night,"  he  went  on.  "  Of 
course  I  shall  refuse  to  accept  any  more 
money  from  Monsieur  and  his  friends,  who 
have  been  already  so  liberal.  But  our  pro- 
gramme of  to-night  is  something  truly  credit- 
able ;  and  I  cling  to  the  idea  that  Monsieur 
will  honor  us  with  his  presence."  And  then, 
with  a  shrug  and  a  smile  :  "  Monsieur  under- 
stands, —  the  vanity  of  an  artist ! "  Save  the 
mark  !  The  vanity  of  an  artist !     That  is  the 


Prtcy  and'the  Marionettes.  249 

kind  of  thing  that  reconciles  me  to  life :  a 
ragged,  tippling,  incompetent  old  rogue,  with 
the  manners  of  a  gentleman  and  the  vanity 
of  an  artist,  to  keep  up  his  self-respect ! 

But  the  man  after  my  own  heart  is  M.  de 
Vauversin.  It  is  nearly  two  years  since  I 
saw  him  first,  and  indeed  I  hope  I  may  see 
him  often  again.  Here  is  his  first  programme 
as  I  found  it  on  the  breakfast-table,  and  have 
kept  it  ever  since  as  a  relic  of  bright  days:  — 
"  Mesdames  et  Messieurs, 

"  Mademoiselle  Ferrario  et  M.  de  Vauversin 
auront  Vhonneur  de  chanter  ce  soir  les  morceaux 
suivants. 

"  Mademoiselle  Ferrario  chantera—  Mignon 
—  Oiseaux  LJgers  —  France  —  Des  Francais 
dorment  la  —  Le  chateau  bleu  —  Oil  voulez* 
vous  aller  ? 

u  M.  de  Vauversin  —  Madame  Fontaine  et 
M.  Robinet  —  Les  plongeurs  a   cheval  —  Li 


250  An  Inland  Voyage. 

Mari  micontent  —  Tais-toi,  gamin  —  Mon  voi- 
sin  V original  —  Henreux  comme  ca  —  Comme 
on  est  trompe." 

They  made  a  stage  at  one  end  of  the  salle- 
d-manger.  And  what  a  sight  it  was  to  see  M. 
de  Vauversin,  with  a  cigarette  in  his  mouth, 
twanging  a  guitar,  and  following  Mademoi- 
selle Ferrarids  eyes  with  the  obedient,  kindly 
look  of  a  dog!  The  entertainment  wound 
up  with  a  tombola,  or  auction  of  lottery 
tickets :  an  admirable  amusement,  with  all 
the  excitement  of  gambling,  and  no  hope  of 
gain  to  make  you  ashamed  of  your  eagerness  ; 
for  there,  all  is  loss  ;  you  make  haste  to  be 
out  of  pocket ;  it  is  a  competition  who  shall 
lose  most  money  for  the  benefit  of  M.  de 
Vauversin  and  Mademoiselle  Ferrario. 

M.  de  Vauversin  is  a  small  man,  with  a 
great  head  of  black  hair,  a  vivacious  and  en- 
gaging air,  and  a  smile  that  would  be  delight- 


Pricy  and  the  Marionettes,  25 1 

1 

ful  if  he  had  better  teeth.  He  was  once  an 
actor  in  the  Chdtelet ;  but  he  contracted  a 
nervous  affection  from  the  heat  and  glare  of 
the  foot-lights,  which  unfitted  him  for  the 
stage.  At  this  crisis  Mademoiselle  Ferrario, 
otherwise  Mademoiselle  Rita  of  the  Alcazar, 
agreed  to  share  his  wandering  fortunes.  "  I 
could  never  forget  the  generosity  of  that 
lady,"  said  he.  He  wears  trousers  so  tight 
that  it  has  long  been  a  problem  to  all  who 
knew  him  how  he  manages  to  get  in  and  out 
of  them.  He  sketches  a  little  in  water-colors, 
he  writes  verses  ;  he  is  the  most  patient  of 
fishermen,  and  spent  long  days  at  the  bottoni 
of  the  inn-garden  fruitlessly  dabbling  a  line 
in  the  clear  river. 

You  should  hear  him  recounting  his  ex- 
periences over  a  bottle  of  wine ;  such  a 
pleasant  vein  of  talk  as  he  has,  with  a  ready 
smile  at  his  own  mishaps,  and  every  now  and 


252  An  Inland  Voyage. 

then  a  sudden  gravity,  like  a  man  who 
should  hear  the  surf  roar  while  he  was  telling 
the  perils  of  the  deep.  For  it  was  no  longeT 
ago  than  last  night,  perhaps,  that  the  re 
ceipts  only  amounted  to  a  franc  and  a  half 
to  cover  three  francs  of  railway  fare  and  two 
of  board  and  lodging.  The  Maire,  a  man 
worth  a  million  of  money,  sat  in  the  front 
seat,  repeatedly  applauding  Mile.  Fcrrario, 
and  yet  gave  no  more  than  three  sous  the 
whole  evening.  Local  authorities  look  with 
such  an  evil  eye  upon  the  strolling  artist. 
Alas  !  I  know  it  well,  who  have  been  myself 
taken  for  one,  and  pitilessly  incarcerated  on 
the  strength  of  the  misapprehension.  Once, 
M.  de  Vauversin  visited  a  commissary  of 
police  for  permission  to  sing.  The  commis- 
sary, who  was  smoking  at  his  ease,  politely 
doffed  his  hat  upon  the  singer's  entrance. 
"  Mr.   Commissary,"   he    began,    "  I   am    an 


PrJcy  and  the  Marionettes.  253 

artist."  And  on  went  the  commissary's  hat 
again.  No  courtesy  for  the  companions  of 
Apollo !  "  They  are  as  degraded  as  that," 
said  M.  de  Vauversin,  with  a  sweep  of  his 
cigarette. 

But  what  pleased  me  most  was  one  out- 
break of  his,  when  we  had  been  talking  all 
the  evening  of  the  rubs,  indignities,  and 
pinchings  of  his  wandering  life.  Some  one 
said  it  would  be  better  to  have  a  million  of 
money  down,  and  Mile.  Ferrario  admitted 
th?u  she  would  prefer  that  mightily.  "Eh 
bit  %  moi  non  ;  —  not  I,"  cried  De  Vauversin, 
striking  the  table  with  his  hand.  "  If  any 
ore  is  a  failure  in  the  world,  is  it  not  I  ?  I 
had  an  art,  in  which  I  have  done  things  well, 
—  as  well  as  some,  better,  perhaps,  than 
oth/jrs  ;  and  now  it  is  closed  against  me.  I 
mi, .;t  go  about  the  country  gathering  coppers 
ar,  '    singing    nonsense.      Do    you   think  I 


254  Art  Inland  Voyage. 

regret  my  life  ?  Do  you  think  I  would 
rather  be  a  fat  burgess,  like  a  calf?  Not  I  ! 
I  have  had  moments  when  I  have  been 
applauded  on  the  boards  :  I  think  nothing  of 
that ;  but  I  have  known  in  my  own  mind 
sometimes,  when  I  had  not  a  clap  from  the 
whole  house,  that  I  had  found  a  true  intona- 
tion, or  an  exact  and  speaking  gesture  ;  and 
then,  messieurs,  I  have  known  what  pleasure 
was,  what  it  was  to  do  a  thing  well,  what  it 
was  to  be  an  artist.  And  to  know  what  art 
is,  is  to  have  an  interest  forever,  such  as  no 
burgess  can  find  in  his  petty  concerns. 
Tenez,  messieurs,  je  vais  vous  le  dire,  —  it  is 
like  a  religion." 

Such,  making  some  allowance  for  the 
tricks  of  memory  and  the  inaccuracies  oi 
translation,  was  the  profession  of  faith  of  M. 
de  Vauversin.  I  have  given  him  his  own 
name,  lest  any  other  wanderer  should  come 


Prdcy  and  the  Marionettes.  255 

across  him,  with  his  guitar  and  cigarette,  and 
Mademoiselle  Ferrario ;  for  should  not  all 
the  world  delight  to  honor  this  unfortunate 
and  loyal  follower  of  the  Muses  ?  May 
Apollo  send  him  rhymes  hitherto  undreamed 
of ;  may  the  river  be  no  longer  scanty  of  her 
silver  fishes  to  his  lure  ;  may  the  cold  not 
pinch  him  on  long  winter  rides,  nor  the 
village  jack-in-office  affront  him  with  un- 
seemly manners ;  and  may  he  never  miss 
Mademoiselle  Ferrario  from  his  side,  to  fol- 
low with  his  dutiful  eyes  and  accompany  on 
the  guitar ! 

The  marionettes  made  a  very  dismal  enter- 
tainment. They  performed  a  piece  called 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  in  five  mortal  acts,  and 
all  written  in  Alexandrines  fully  as  long  as 
the  performers.  One  marionette  was  the 
king  ;  another  the  wicked  counsellor ;  a  third, 
credited  with  exceptional  beauty,  represent^ 


256  An  Inland  Voyage. 

TJiisbe ;  and  then  there  were  guards,  and 
obdurate  fathers,  and  walking  gentlemen. 
Nothing  particular  took  place  during  the  two 
or  three  acts  that  I  sat  out ;  but  you  will 
be  pleased  to  learn  that  the  unities  were 
properly  respected,  and  the  whole  piece, 
with  one  exception,  moved  in  harmony  with 
classical  rules.  That  exception  was  the 
comic  countryman,  a  lean  marionette  in 
wooden  shoes,  who  spoke  in  prose  and  in  a 
broad  patois  much  appreciated  by  the  audi- 
ence. He  took  unconstitutional  liberties 
with  the  person  of  his  sovereign ;  kicked  his 
fellow-marionettes  in  the  mouth  with  his 
wooden  shoes,  and  whenever  none  of  the 
versifying  suitors  were  about,  made  love  to 
TJiisbe  on  his  own  account  in  comic  prose. 

This  fellow's  evolutions,  and  the  little  pro- 
logue, in  which  the  showman  nade  a  humor- 
ous eulogium  of  his  troop,  praising  their  in- 


P Hey  and  the  Marionettes.  257 

difference  to  applause  and  hisses,  and  their 
single  devotion  to  their  art,  were  the  only  cir- 
cumstances in  the  whole  affair  that  you 
could  fancy  would  so  much  as  raise  a  smile. 
But  the  villagers  of  Precy  seemed  delighted. 
Indeed,  so  long  as  a  thing  is  an  exhibition, 
and  you  pay  to  see  it,  it  is  nearly  certain  to 
amuse.  If  we  were  charged  so  much  a  head 
for  sunsets,  or  if  God  sent  round  a  drum  be- 
fore the  hawthorns  came  in  flower,  what  a 
work  should  we  not  make  about  their  beauty  ! 
But  these  things,  like  good  companions, 
stupid  people  early  cease  to  observe ;  and  the 
Abstract  Bagman  tittups  past  in  his  spring 
gig,  and  is  positively  not  aware  of  the  flowers 
along  the  lane,  or  the  scenery  of  the  weather 
overhead. 


17 


BACK  TO  THE  WORLD. 

Of  the  next  two  days'  sail  little  remains 
in  my  mind,  and  nothing  whatever  in  my 
note-book.  The  river  streamed  on  stead- 
ily  through  pleasant  river-side  landscapes. 
Washerwomen  in  blue  dresses,  fishers  in 
blue  blouses,  diversified  the  green  banks  ; 
and  the  relation  of  the  two  colors  was  like 
that  of  the  flower  and  the  leaf  in  the  forget- 
me-not.  A  symphony  in  forget-me-not ;  I 
think  Thfophile  Gautier  might  thus  have 
characterized  that  two  days'  panorama.  The 
sky  was  blue  and  cloudless ;  and  the  sliding 
surface  of  the  river  held  up,  in  smooth  places, 
a  mirror  to  the  heaven  and  the  shores. 
The  washerwomen  hailed  us  laughingly ;  and 
the  noise  of  trees  and  water  made  an  accom- 


Back  to  the  World.  259 

paniment  to  our  dozing  thoughts,  as  we 
fleeted  down  the  stream. 

The  great  volume,  the  indefatigable  pur- 
pose of  the  river,  held  the  mind  in  chain. 
It  seemed  now  so  sure  of  its  end,  so  strong 
and  easy  in  its  gait,  like  a  grown  man  full  of 
determination.  The  surf  was  roaring  for  it 
on  the  sands  of  Havre.\   For  my  own  part 

A 

slipping  along  this  moving  thoroughfare  in 
my  fiddle-case  of  a  canoe,  I  also  was  begin- 
ning to  grow  aweary  for  my  ocean.  To  the 
civilized  man  there  must  come,  sooner  or 
later,  a  desire  for  civilization.  I  was  weary 
of  dipping  the  paddle  ;  I  was  weary  of  liv- 
ing on  the  skirts  of  life  ;  I  wished  to  be  in 
the  thick  of  it  once  more ;  I  wished  to  get  to 
work  ;  I  wished  to  meet  people  who  under- 
stood my  own  speech,  and  could  meet  with 
me  on  equal  terms,  as  a  man,  and  no  longef 
as  a  curiosity. 


260  An  Inland  Voyage. 

And  so  a  letter  at  Pontoise  decided  us,  and 
we  drew  up  our  keels  for  the  last  time  out  of 
that  river  of  Vise  that  had   faithfully  piloted 
them,  through  rain  and  sunshine,  for  so  long. 
For  so  many  miles  had   this  fleet   and   foot- 
less beast  of  burden  charioted  our  fortunes 
that  we  turned  our  back  upon  it  with  a  sense 
of  separation.     We  had  a  long  detour  out  of 
the   world,  but   now   we  were   back   in   the 
familiar  places,  where   life   itself  makes   all 
the  running,  and  we  are  carried  to  meet   ad- 
venture without  a  stroke  of  the  paddle.    Now 
we  were  to  return,  like  the   voyager  in  the 
play,  and   see  what  rearrangements  fortune 
had  perfected  the  while  in  our  surroundings ; 
what  surprises  stood  ready  made  for  us  at 
home;  and  whither  and  how  far  the  world  had 
voyaged  in  our   absence.     You   may  paddle 
all  day  long ;  but  it  is  when  you  come  back 
at    nightfall,   and    look   in   at    the    familiar 


Back  to  the  World.  261 

room,  that  you  find  Love  or  Death  awaiting 
you  beside  the  stove ;  and  the  most  beau- 
tiful adventures  are  not  those  we  go  to 
seek.  s 

[ ,_,  <?X  THE 


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